Hindsight bias makes outcomes feel obvious after they happen. A written decision record gives you something better than memory: it shows what you believed before the result arrived.
The 7-day review
The first review should be practical. Ask what happened after the first action, what was harder than expected, and whether you should keep, change, or stop. At seven days, you are reviewing friction more than final outcome.
The 30-day review
The second review should compare expected and actual outcomes. Do not rewrite your original reasoning. Add the result, the deviation, and the correction.
Questions to ask
- What did I expect to happen?
- What actually happened?
- Which assumptions were correct?
- Which assumptions were wrong or incomplete?
- What signal did I ignore?
- What should I do differently next time?
Make the next adjustment small
Reviews fail when they become moral verdicts. Keep the next adjustment operational: change the checklist, add a warning signal, ask one person earlier, set a tighter scope, or define a stop condition before committing.