Most decisions are reversible and deserve minutes. A few are not and deserve weeks. Treating them the same is exhausting and slow.
10 min read · Level 2
Founders deliberate hardest on the decisions that are most visible rather than most consequential — two weeks on a project management tool, one enthusiastic dinner on a co-founder. Sorting by what it costs to undo fixes most of this in a minute. And the higher-order move is removing decisions entirely: every recurring choice converted into a standing rule is capacity returned permanently.
Founders make an unusual number of decisions with limited information. The practical technique is to sort them by reversibility:
Reversible — try it, learn, change it. Decide fast. Hard to reverse — co-founder, equity, funding terms, key hires, jurisdiction. Decide slowly.
Most decisions are the first kind. Most founder deliberation goes to the first kind anyway.
Because decision quality falls as volume rises, and treating every choice as consequential burns the capacity you need for the ones that genuinely are.
And because slowness on reversible decisions is expensive twice over — you lose the time deliberating and you lose the information you would have got from trying it.
Reversible, decide in minutes: which analytics tool, the pricing page layout, this week's priority, whether to attend an event, what to call a feature. Wrong choices here cost days at most, and trying it teaches you more than thinking about it would.
Hard to reverse, take weeks: taking on a co-founder, the equity split, accepting funding terms, the first two hires, which jurisdiction to incorporate in, firing someone.
A founder spending two weeks choosing a project management tool while deciding on a co-founder over one enthusiastic dinner has it exactly backwards — and this is common rather than unusual.
The practical test: if this is wrong, what does it cost to undo? If the answer is under a week of work, decide now and move.
The secondary technique: remove decisions entirely. Defaults, routines and standing rules eliminate whole categories. Decide once that you take customer calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you never decide it again.
First-time founders often deliberate hardest on the decisions that are most visible rather than most consequential. Tool choices and naming are visible; equity splits and co-founder choices are quiet and enormous.
The second mistake: making irreversible decisions quickly because they are uncomfortable. Discomfort is a reason to prepare, not a reason to hurry.
The third: not reducing the decision load at all. Every recurring choice you convert into a default is capacity returned to the ones that matter.
Under a week of work → decide now. Weeks or permanent → slow down and prepare.
Reversible: ten minutes. Consequential: a week and at least two conversations.
Standing rules and routines remove whole categories of decision permanently.
If it is cheap to undo, someone else can make it. This is also how people learn.
Options, what you assumed, why you chose. In six months you will want to know what you actually knew at the time.
One session rather than interrupting deep work forty times.
Daily, and especially in periods where you feel overwhelmed by choices.
Some reversible decisions are still worth care because reversing them is publicly costly — a price rise, a rename. Reversible does not always mean free.
Tool choices, page layouts, feature names, this week's priority — wrong answers cost days at most, and trying them teaches more than deliberating would. The deliberation is expensive twice: the time spent, and the information you did not get by acting.
Ask what it costs to undo. Under a week means decide today or delegate it, and delegating is also how people learn.
Deciding once that customer calls happen Tuesdays and Thursdays removes that decision permanently. Founders who feel overwhelmed by choices are usually re-deciding the same handful every week without noticing that they are the same ones.
Convert one recurring choice into a rule this week. The relief is disproportionate to the effort.
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