I spent a year recording my decisions
What could have gone wrong?
At the end of 2023, I hit pause on my life. Something wasn’t right. I hadn’t been taking the time to reflect on what truly mattered or where I needed to grow. My job is all about inspiring people to make better decisions, but I felt it would be hypocritical if I couldn’t do the same for myself. I felt lost. And when I’m lost, I create a spreadsheet.
This time, the spreadsheet had a purpose. I called it “One Weekly Decision.” The plan was simple: record just one decision each week to keep the stakes low. But that idea didn’t last long — because I quickly realized, well life was filled with decisions. Big ones. Small ones. Weird ones.
What kinds of decisions, you ask? Everything from whether I should prioritize my health over work, to whether I should take up a new hobby, to whether I should finally make that important call. Week after week, I logged them all. For an entire year, this became my ritual. Every Sunday, I sat down and recorded every decision that came to mind, organizing them into categories. By the end of the year, my spreadsheet weighed in at 279 decisions.
So, was this idea nuts? Let’s find out.
One space dominated the decision landscape: Sports and Health.
The number of decisions taken in each “Decision Area” throughout 2024.
As 2024 began, I knew I needed something to ground me — a focus that felt meaningful and doable. I decided to prioritize one area: sports and health. It was a choice that felt right, something I could commit to and build on.
This had been a major area of focus at the end of 2023, and I wanted to carry that momentum into 2024. This meant I made more decisions in that category — and because it was such a priority, I was more committed to recording them.
The biggest highlight of this focus? I started running. For context, I couldn’t run for more than 10 minutes without losing my breath and feeling pain in my abs. But by committing to the habit, I gradually improved and finally could run 5k. Yes, that was my accomplishment — running only 5k. My turtle feet are in awe of people who can run long-distance.
The cumulative number of decisions throughout the months by Decision Area.
You might be wondering what each decision area entails. So let me list and explain them clearly but vaguely enough to keep it personal:
Sports & Health: exercises, nutrition, cooking
Music: music activities
Work: professional development
DS (Data Science): professional development in this one area through courses or projects
Acting: acting classes, performances
Org: activities that improve planning, better reflections, etc.
Writing: what you are reading right now or any other story I wrote:)
Life: activities that are not productive by capitalist standards
Interestingly, “Life” decisions — things like relationships — seemed to take a backseat in 2024. Is that right? Am I so careless about my other “Life”? Funny category, indeed. Well, that right there, along with all the decisions I “recorded” in the other categories, are an example of both memory bias and selection bias. I tended to record decisions I was proud of or those emotionally aligned with my personal narrative and the intentions I set for 2024.
This aligns with findings from a study in the Journal of Cognitive Psychology, which showed that “people remember/recall the words that fit into their present self-schema more and forget the words which go against it.”
And I thought I had my biases under control! Oof, room to improve.
Different verbs, different results
Top 15 Words Frequency in the 2024 Decision Log
When making decisions, I noticed a certain structure forming in my mind — a structure I’m sure many of us share. This can be seen in the word cloud above. One thing I’ve found helpful is adding a verb in front of each decision, which helps me clarify its intent. Otherwise, I don’t count it as a decision.
The most common verbs I used were “start,” “make,” “continue,” “run,” “meet,” and “write.” That does not necessarily represent a limited vocabulary, but a way to capture my stakes and my focus.
Early on, I realized that keeping the stakes low made the process easier. Many of my decisions revolved around “starting” something without any pressure to continue. However, as I began, I often ended up “continuing” what I started. Along the way, verbs like “writing” and “running” became more frequent. The abbreviation “km” (as in kilometres for running) appeared, along with nouns like “improv.”
What is improv? See next.
Tiny decisions lead to bigger ones
A sample of decisions I took in the Decision Area “Acting” by Week Number. Notice the gap between the weeks.
A sample of decisions I took in the Decision Area “Acting” by Week Number. Notice the gap between the weeks.
It’s strange how one small, seemingly random choice (kidding, not so random) can set off a chain reaction, pushing you into places you never planned on going. In my case, it was a decision that started with acting classes — and ended up with me auditioning for theatre, appearing in a short film, and even returning to Improv Theatre. None of it was expected.
What was the chain of thought?
When I signed up for acting classes, I thought, “I’m ready to audition.” I wasn’t. But I gave it a shot anyway. After being turned down, I ended up collaborating with other actors I met in class on a partly improvised short film. That experience reminded me how much I missed Improv. So, I signed up for another class, met more incredible people, and eventually built up the courage to join an Improv troupe.
Improv has significantly improved my mental health, communication, and listening skills — or at least it feels that way to me. After almost a year-long break, I was happy to return to it.
After all these blah and seemingly impressive numbers, did the decision log influence any of this? Maybe yes, maybe no. But what it certainly did was force me to notice my decisions, to see them not just as isolated moments, but as parts of a bigger picture I was slowly creating.
Heavily biased towards ”doing-decisions”
This is a good example of poor plotting. I decided to keep it to see if you might find it as confusing as I did.
I was chatting with a coworker about quirky ways to track our daily lives. I mentioned my decision spreadsheet, and he asked, “Are you also logging the decisions you didn’t make?” That question hit me like an AHA moment — seven months into logging! I decided to start recording some of those missed decisions too.
Looking at the chart above, it’s clear my decision log leans heavily toward “doing” decisions. I naturally remember what I did more vividly than what I avoided or procrastinated on (again, memory bias and selection bias). And honestly, I feel more regret when I reflect on promises I made to myself but didn’t follow through on. By Sunday afternoon, my brain struggles to recall those missed moments — and honestly, that’s a bit of a relief!
It turns out, I’m not alone in this tendency. Research on decision-making and cognitive psychology has shown that people often prioritize action over inaction. A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that people tend to regret actions they didn’t take more than the ones they did, even if the outcomes of those actions were not ideal. This is known as the “action bias” — we feel worse about missed opportunities than about mistakes we’ve made.
As an example, I had moments when I would go 5 times a week to the gym and I would get exhausted from it. But I still felt like I had to keep up when it would have been better to retreat to “inaction” and just take a break.
So, looking ahead to the next year, I’m making a conscious effort to not just focus on what I do, but also on what I choose not to do. This will mean making decisions that aren’t always driven by the urge to take action, but also by the willingness to pause, reflect, and sometimes say no.
After all, doing less is more.
