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The Decision Navigator
A weekly guide for leaders who want to navigate decisions better in an age of noise, pressure, and AI.
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You are probably spending too much energy on the wrong decisions.
Not because you're undisciplined or unfocused. Because your brain is wired to treat every decision as urgent. The limbic brain, the part that runs on instinct and emotion, doesn't distinguish between "should I take this job?" and "should I respond to this email?" It just flags everything as: handle this now.
The result? You pour real energy into choices that won't matter in two weeks, and you drift past the ones that will still be shaping your life two decades from now.
That's not a productivity problem. That's a discernment problem.
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The 10-10-10 Framework
Here’s a simple lens I’ve been using and teaching for years. Before you invest time, energy, or anxiety into a decision, ask three questions:
Will I still feel the impact of this choice 10 days from now?
Will I still feel the impact of this choice 10 months from now?
Will I still feel the impact of this choice 10 years from now?
The answer tells you how much of yourself to give it.
A 10-day decision deserves a quick, confident call. A 10-month decision deserves some structured thinking. A 10-year decision? That’s worth sitting with. That’s worth running through the full Decision Canvas. That’s worth praying over, stress-testing, and getting right.
Most of what fills your week is 10-day stuff. A handful of decisions per year are genuinely 10-year ones. The problem is that without a sizing lens, they all feel the same.
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The decision I wasted weeks on
About ten years ago, I was leading the design of a sales management training program. It felt enormous. Dozens of people would go through it. The timing was critical: we were in the middle of a product launch and an acquisition was on the horizon. I agonized over the approach, the content, the structure.
Ten years later? That team has been through at least two other programs since then. A few old colleagues still mention a nugget or two that stuck. But it was never going to be life-changing. Program A versus Program B was a 10-month decision at best. I treated it like a 10-year one.
I gave it the wrong level of rigor. Not because I was careless, but because I hadn't asked the sizing question first.
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Here's the counter-intuitive part
Most people assume that slow, careful, exhaustive deliberation is the responsible approach to decisions. More thought equals better outcomes, right?
Not always. Applying maximum energy to minimum-consequence choices isn't wisdom. It's waste. And it leaves you depleted for the decisions that actually deserve your full attention.
Deciding faster on small things is how you reclaim agency. It's not a shortcut. It's stewardship of your most limited resource: the mental and emotional capacity to think clearly when it matters most.
Decision fatigue is real. But a lot of what we call decision fatigue is actually misallocated decision energy.
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Where this lives in the Decision Canvas
The very first step in the Anchor phase is to Frame It. Before you define success, before you list your options, before you do anything else, you size the decision.
How big is this, really?
The 10-10-10 lens is one of the best tools I know for answering that question honestly. Because if you get the sizing wrong, everything downstream is off. You'll either over-invest in something small or under-invest in something that matters.
Get the frame right first. Then build.
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This week's deep dive: the decision that still guides me
I'll be honest with you. I've been thinking about this edition for a few weeks, and it started with a personal realization rather than a teaching idea.
I'm turning 49 this week.
And as I looked back, one career decision made over 15 years ago still governs how I live today. It wasn't a single moment. It was a reframe. I decided that work isn't a means to income or status. It's how I put my best into the world. That one shift changed what I pursue, what I say no to, how I show up, and what I'm willing to sacrifice.
It also explains why I exercise every day. Not because I'm disciplined in some heroic way, but because I redefined success, which means my body is something I steward, not something I run into the ground. That 10-year decision still compounds.
Here's what I didn't fully appreciate at the time: that decision was worth the agonizing. It was worth the sleepless nights and the long conversations and the wrestling. Because the impact is still being felt today. I have a compass to guide my decisions.
Most of the other things I've agonized over? They're gone. The stress, the energy, the lost sleep. None of it is still paying interest.
One life. One story. The 10-year decisions are the ones worth deciding well.
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👥 If you lead a team:
How many items on your recurring meeting agenda are actually 10-day decisions being treated like 10-year ones? Decision sizing is one of the fastest ways to create velocity. When your team can answer "how big is this?" before they bring it to you, escalation drops and ownership rises.
⚡ If you’re running solo:
Decision fatigue often isn't from making hard decisions. It's from applying full effort to decisions that deserve 30 seconds. A simple sizing question at the start of your week can give you back real mental energy. Not every decision needs a framework. Some just need a fast, confident answer.
✝️ If you’re navigating this with faith:
The 10-year decisions are the ones worth praying over, sitting with, and bringing before God with full seriousness. The 10-day ones? Act in faith and move. Part of mature discernment is knowing which is which. Over-spiritualizing a 10-day decision isn't faithfulness. It's often fear wearing the costume of wisdom.
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Your action step this week
Pick one decision currently on your mind. Run it through the lens: will I still feel the impact of this choice 10 days from now? 10 months? 10 years?
Then give it the energy that answer deserves. No more. No less.
Not sure how to size it? I built a short quiz to help you figure out exactly how much rigor a decision actually requires. It takes about two minutes.
👇 Take the Decision Size Quiz
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This week's newsletter is the beginning of a fuller conversation about the Anchor phase of the Decision Canvas and specifically the "Frame It" step. If you want to go deeper on the Canvas itself, the free download is always available below.
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Your life is worth deciding well.
Andy
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1445 Woodmont Lane NW #713, Atlanta, GA 30318
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Want the full framework?
Download the free Decision Canvas—it walks you through ANCHOR → DISCERN → DECIDE for any decision.
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