Rules and Filters

Pre-established criteria for filtering information, opportunities, and decisions—created when calm and rational so they're available when stress, emotion, or urgency impairs judgment. Investment criteria, hiring scorecards, decision checklists, and personal policies ('I don't take meetings before 10am') are all rules and filters. The power is in making difficult decisions automatic: by pre-committing to criteria, you prevent in-the-moment rationalization from overriding good judgment.

When to use it

When you face recurring decisions that are susceptible to emotional or social pressure; when you notice a pattern of making exceptions that you later regret; when building scalable decision processes for teams; when creating personal policies to protect your time, energy, and resources.

How it can help

Identify your most important recurring decisions and create explicit filters for each. What criteria must an investment meet before you'll consider it? What must be true for you to say yes to a speaking engagement? What would cause you to fire a client? Write these down and commit to them. The key discipline: follow the rules even when a specific case seems like an exception—because every bad decision feels like a justified exception in the moment.