I was listening to a podcast about decisionmaking. It was a reminder that we are no good at remembering the information we had going into the decision after the fact.

We might have a great outcome and think, wow, we really made a fantastic decision; when in reality it might have been luck. On the flip side, when things don’t turn out well, if we can look at the information we actually had to make the decision we may realize what we did wrong in making the decision and can correct it next time. Or, it is possible that we made a really good decision with the information we had and it simply didn’t turn out the way we wanted.

Decisions are rarely 100%. We decide on the margins and do the best we can, but only if we track can we do things differently in the future.

But how do we keep track?

There are many ways of course depending on the type of the decision, but I was prompted to revisit a project I started right as I began working for myself full-time. Each week I wrote out 5-10 lessons I learned that week. It often evolved into the struggles, but occasionally a nugget of insight out of the struggles. I only kept it up for a few months and then have revisited occasionally since.

Now, looking over those very initial insights from a couple years ago, was truly helpful.

Tracking is a gift to our future self, though it often feels useless in the moment. What will your future self want to know about your current self – and the information that the current self is using to make decisions, or the struggles your current self is having?

And how will you share your current self with your future self?