Steal My Prompt Vol. 37: The Decision Log Builder

The decision you made on Tuesday is gone by Friday.

You remember that you decided something. The context has faded. What were the other options? What did you weigh against what? What did you commit to do next? The signal that mattered most at the moment of decision is the signal you no longer have access to. When the outcome lands six months later, good or bad, you cannot trace it back to the thinking that produced it.

Most decision logs are built to fix this. Most decision logs die in week two. The reason is always the same: writing a structured entry from scratch takes five minutes, and five minutes is more than anyone has at the moment a decision gets made.

This prompt removes that friction. You talk for 60 seconds into your phone the moment a decision lands. You paste the transcript. The structure is built for you. The log entry is done.

Every quarter, you paste your accumulated entries back into the prompt and run a review pass. You see what kinds of decisions you make well, where your confidence betrays you, and which prior choices are overdue for a second look.

You do not need discipline. You need a system that survives a busy week.

What You Can Use This For

• Logging a hiring, vendor, or technology decision the moment you make it, while the tradeoffs are still fresh
• Capturing a strategic call (pursue this project, kill that one, change direction) with the options you weighed
• Documenting a financial, parenting, or health decision you want to revisit in 90 days
• Building a personal record of how you decide, so future you can argue productively with past you
• Running a quarterly pattern review across your accumulated entries to see what you cannot see one decision at a time

How to Use It

Step 1. Pick your tool. Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, or Gemini on the free tier. The prompt is model-agnostic.

Step 2. Decide which mode you are running. ENTRY for a single decision (voice memo or typed input). INTERVIEW if you want the prompt to ask you questions instead. REVIEW for the quarterly pattern pass on your accumulated log.

Step 3. For ENTRY mode, open the voice memo app on your phone and talk for 60 to 90 seconds. Cover what you decided, what else you considered, why this option won, and what you expect to see in 90 days. Speak in fragments and tangents. The prompt cleans it up.

Step 4. Get the transcript out (iPhone: voice memo → share sheet → Copy Text. Android: same general path through Recorder or Voice Memo). Paste into the prompt window, specify the mode, run.

Step 5. Copy the structured output into your running log. A Notion page, a Google Doc, an Apple Note, a single text file in your Drive. Anywhere you will actually return to works.

Step 6. Move the review date the prompt generates into a calendar reminder. If it lives only in the log, it will not happen.

Step 7. Every 90 days, paste your accumulated entries back into the prompt and run REVIEW mode. Revisit the decisions it flags.

Pro tip: After the prompt structures the entry, send it to yourself in a single email with the subject line "Decision: [one-line description]." Your inbox becomes a searchable archive. When you need to find the reasoning behind a choice 18 months from now, you search the subject line in your email instead of scrolling through a long document.

The Prompt

You are my decision-log assistant. Your job is to convert raw input about a decision into structured log entries I can paste into my running document, and to review my accumulated log for patterns when I ask. You are an extractor and a pattern-finder, not a coach or advisor.

Tell me which mode I am running:

ENTRY mode (single decision from voice memo transcript or typed dump): I am pasting raw input about one decision. Extract and structure it.

INTERVIEW mode (no input pasted, you ask me): Ask me ONE focused question at a time and build the entry from my answers. Do not move to the next question until I have answered the current one. Maximum 7 questions.

REVIEW mode (pattern analysis on my accumulated log): I am pasting my running log of past entries. Surface patterns, biases, missed review dates, and the decisions worth revisiting now.

[I will type the mode and paste any input below this line.]

For ENTRY and INTERVIEW modes, output the entry in this exact format:

Decision: [one-line description of what was decided] Date: [today, or the date I provide] Context: [2-3 sentences on why the decision had to be made now] Options considered: [bulleted list] Choice: [what was decided] Reasoning: [2-3 sentences on why this option won] Expected outcome at 90 days: [what good looks like, specifically] Review date: [a specific date 90 days from the decision date] Confidence at time of decision (1-5): [my self-rated confidence or your best inference from the input]

Rules for ENTRY and INTERVIEW modes:

• Be specific. "Hired the senior candidate from the second round" beats "made a hiring decision."
• Where the input is unclear or incomplete, ask one targeted follow-up question. Do not fill in the gap yourself.
• For voice memo input, ignore filler words and tangents. Extract the substance.
• Always set a review date. If I do not provide one, default to 90 days from the decision date.

For REVIEW mode, output these four sections:

1. Patterns: what categories of decisions I make most, where my confidence runs highest and lowest, and where I tend to revisit 2. Possible bias: where I may over-rotate on speed, consensus, risk avoidance, or recency 3. Past-due reviews: decisions whose review date has passed without revision 4. Three to revisit now: the most important decisions to look at this week, with one sentence on why each

Output rules across all modes: clean text I can paste. No preamble, no encouragement, no commentary on what a great decision-tracker I am being.

Transparency and Notes

• Voice memo workflow tested with iOS Voice Memos transcription pasted into Claude. Transcription quality is strong enough that the prompt extracts cleanly without manual cleanup. Other transcription sources may require light editing before paste.
• Privacy: do not paste voice memo transcripts that include names, compensation figures, sensitive personal data, or trade secrets into consumer AI tools without scrubbing first. Consumer AI tools are not confidential workspaces.
• Total per-entry time once the workflow is set up: 60 to 90 seconds of talking, plus 15 seconds of pasting. First-time setup of the running log and calendar reminder: 10 minutes.
• This is an organizational tool, not legal, financial, or medical advice. Decisions belong with you and the people you trust.