✦
Experiments

Decision makerTwo good options.
Score them and find out.

A pros and cons list has a specific flaw: it counts. Seven small pros beat two enormous cons on the page and lose badly in reality, because nothing on a list records how much each item matters. Almost every decision people describe as impossible is one where the weights were never written down.

Free, no sign-up. Worked out in your browser, nothing sent anywhere, and the result imports into EvyOS.

What you actually care about

Weight each one first, then score both options against it.

CriterionMattersOption AOption B
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Name at least two things you care about.

Everything is worked out in this page and saved in this browser only. Nothing is sent anywhere.

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✦ How to use it

Three things that make it work.

1
Weight before you score

Fill in the criteria and their weights first. Doing it while looking at the options bends them towards the answer you wanted.

2
Let the weights differ

If everything matters 10, the weighting does nothing and you are back to counting.

3
Read the margin

A close result means the decision does not matter much. That is a finding, and it is permission to just pick one.

So the criteria are weighted first, before the options are scored. Doing it in that order matters — deciding what you care about while looking at the options is how the weights get quietly bent towards the answer you already wanted.

The most useful output is often the margin rather than the winner. A near-tie means the decision genuinely does not matter much, and hours spent on it are hours wasted; a landslide against your instinct means a criterion is missing.

✦ The limit

An answer is not a record.

This works something out and then forgets it. It cannot tell you whether the number moved, because it has no memory of the last time you ran it and no idea what you did in between. Every calculator on the internet has that limit, and if it has never bothered you then this one is yours for free for good.

EvyOS is the same structure with the work recorded against it. Send the result across and it becomes real goals, tasks or habits with their dates — then the next answer is computed from what actually happened rather than from what you remember typing.

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✦ Questions

Decision maker, answered.

A list counts, and counting is the flaw: seven small pros beat two enormous cons on paper and lose badly in reality. Weighting the criteria before scoring is what fixes it, and it is why almost every "impossible" decision turns out to be one where the weights were never written down.
Because doing it the other way round bends the weights towards the answer you already wanted. It happens without any dishonesty at all, which is precisely why the order matters.
Usually your gut, and usually because a criterion is missing rather than mis-scored. Add the thing you have not written down — it is often the real reason and it is often slightly embarrassing.
Then the decision genuinely does not matter much, which is a real answer. Below about a 0.4 margin the cost of continuing to deliberate exceeds the difference between the options, so pick either and move on.
Not in this one — two is where most real decisions sit, and the display stays readable. For a longer list, the goal priority calculator ranks any number of things on four fixed dimensions.

Keep the answer.
And the record of doing it.

Goals, projects, tasks, habits and skills in one system, with the work logged against what it belonged to.

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