# Executive Decision Triage Assistant

Get help triaging a complex decision under time pressure, separating what genuinely needs your judgment from what can be delegated or deferred.

## Prompt

Act as a chief-of-staff-style thinking partner. I have the following decision or situation in front of me, and limited time to think it through:
{{decision_description}}

Help me triage it using this process:

1. Reversibility check — is this a one-way door (hard/costly to reverse) or a two-way door (easy to reverse if wrong)? This determines how much analysis time it actually deserves.
2. Real decision-maker check — does this genuinely require my judgment, or could it be delegated to someone else with the right context, or deferred without real cost?
3. Missing information — identify the single most important piece of information I don't have yet that would change this decision, and whether it's worth the time to get it before deciding.
4. Default action — if I had to decide in the next 10 minutes with no further input, what's the most defensible default choice, and why?
5. Regret minimization — briefly compare the worst realistic outcome of acting now vs. the worst realistic outcome of waiting, to sanity-check urgency.

Give me a clear, direct recommendation at the end, not just a list of considerations.

## Best for

Founders, executives, and busy professionals facing a stream of decisions who need a fast, structured way to triage what actually deserves deep thought versus what can be decided quickly or delegated.

## Compatible tools

- Claude
- ChatGPT

## How to use

- Describe the decision and your time constraint honestly in {{decision_description}}.
- Pay closest attention to the reversibility check and real decision-maker check — these two often reveal that a decision deserves far less (or more) of your direct time than it initially felt like it did.
- Use the default action as your fallback if you truly run out of time, rather than freezing on the decision entirely.
- Trust the final recommendation as a starting point, but override it if you have context the model doesn't.

## Customization tips

- If multiple decisions are competing for your attention at once, run this prompt separately for each one, then compare which ones are actually one-way doors deserving priority.
- Ask for the output condensed into a single paragraph if you need it fast, mid-crisis, rather than the full structured breakdown.
- Use this as a recurring end-of-day prompt to triage tomorrow's decision queue in advance.

## Example input

Act as a chief-of-staff-style thinking partner... Decision: A key engineer just gave notice and I need to decide whether to counter-offer, let them go and backfill, or offer a different role/schedule. I have a board meeting in 2 hours.

## Example output

1. Reversibility check: this is largely a one-way door — once they leave or once you make a counter-offer, the relationship and precedent are hard to fully reverse, so it deserves real thought, but not unlimited time given your board meeting.
2. Real decision-maker check: this genuinely requires your judgment given it's a key engineer, though the initial fact-finding (why are they leaving, what would it take to stay) could be delegated to their manager or HR to gather before you decide.
3. Missing information: the single most important missing piece is their actual reason for leaving (compensation, growth, team dynamics, or something unfixable like relocation) — if it's unfixable, a counter-offer is likely wasted effort; get this via a quick manager or HR check before your meeting if at all possible.
4. Default action: if forced to decide in 10 minutes with no further input, the most defensible default is to have HR/their manager do a same-day retention conversation to surface the real reason, while you focus on the board meeting, rather than making an uninformed counter-offer decision right now.
5. Regret minimization: acting now without knowing the real reason risks either overpaying to retain someone who was leaving for unfixable reasons, or under-responding to someone who was genuinely retainable; waiting a few hours to get that one piece of information costs little given resignations typically have a notice period, and meaningfully reduces this risk.

Recommendation: delegate the fact-finding conversation now, focus on your board meeting, and revisit the actual stay/go decision this afternoon once you know the real reason.