Decision link

Before gathering any evidence, name the specific action or belief that the answer could actually change.

You're deep in your third hour of reading about sleep trackers. Tabs full of reviews, a comparison spreadsheet started, a Reddit thread about heart-rate accuracy open. Somewhere around review number 14 a quiet question surfaces: what exactly will you do differently once you know which tracker is "best"? If the honest answer is nothing, you've been researching for the feeling of progress, not for a decision.

Decision link is the move of naming, before you gather any evidence, the specific action, belief, or commitment the answer could actually change. The cue is noticing you're about to look something up or run a test. The operation: write one sentence in the form "if I learn X, I will do Y instead of Z." For the tracker, that might be "if wrist trackers are accurate within 20 minutes, I'll buy one instead of booking a sleep study." Then check the sentence is real: would a different answer truly flip your action? What changes when it works is that half your open tabs close themselves, because most of what you were reading couldn't change anything. Skip this move when you're reading purely for pleasure or general learning, where no decision is waiting on the answer.