# Decision hygiene

> Decision hygiene is the practice of pausing a high-stakes, emotionally charged decision to answer a fixed set of questions — aim, supporting evidence, contradicting evidence, cost of being wrong, smallest reversible step — before acting.

Category: Governance
Also searched as: debiasing, the pause rule, decision discipline
Source: Mediator Solutions — https://mediatorsolutions.io/learn/#decision-hygiene
License: free to read, learn, cite, and apply, with attribution to Mediator Solutions.

## What it is

Bad decisions usually begin before the decision, in fear, urgency, ego, fatigue or sunk cost. Decision hygiene inserts a deliberate pause when stakes and emotion are both high, and runs a fixed checklist that separates the distortion from the decision. Fear is translated into a specific concern before it is allowed to move anything.

## Why it matters

Bad decisions usually begin before the decision — in fear, urgency, ego, fatigue or sunk cost — which is why the moment of choice is the wrong place to fix them. Decision hygiene inserts a deliberate pause when stakes and emotion are both high and runs a fixed checklist that separates the distortion from the decision. The specific discipline is translating fear into a named, checkable concern before it is allowed to move anything, because fear is a signal worth hearing but it is not evidence worth acting on directly.

## When to use it

- Facing a decision where stakes and emotion are both high.
- Fear, urgency, ego, fatigue, or sunk cost is present at the moment of choice.
- A fear is about to move a decision before it has been named and checked.

## Principles

- A high-stakes, emotionally charged decision earns a pause before action.
- Answer the fixed questions: aim, supporting evidence, contradicting evidence, cost of being wrong, smallest reversible step.
- Fear is a signal, not evidence; translate it into a specific concern first.
- Separate objective evidence from preference, identity attachment and sunk cost.

## Practice

1. When stakes and emotion are both high, pause before acting.
2. Run the five pause questions in writing.
3. Translate any fear into a specific, checkable concern.
4. Prefer the smallest reversible step and record why.

## Where it fails

- **In-the-moment correction** — The distortion is addressed at the moment of choice, which is the wrong place, so fear or urgency drives the decision.
- **Fear-as-evidence** — A fear is acted on directly rather than translated into a named, checkable concern, so a signal is mistaken for proof.
- **Sunk-cost pull** — Past investment is weighed into a forward decision, so good money follows bad.

## In practice

An operator wants to abandon a project after one bad week — the fear is real and the stakes are high. Decision hygiene inserts a deliberate pause and runs a fixed checklist that separates the distortion from the decision. The fear is translated into a named concern — are we structurally behind, or just rattled by one week — which is checkable against evidence. The fear was worth hearing; it was not evidence worth acting on directly. The decision is made on the checked concern, not the feeling.

## Verification

The decision record shows the pause questions answered and the distortion named, so a later reviewer can see the decision was made on evidence rather than under pressure.

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