01
Externalize the model
Move the decision out of working memory so hidden assumptions become inspectable.
Reality Skill · Solo Decision Tool
Make the decision visible before you try to make it better.
A free Reality Map worksheet for consequential decisions. Use it when you are deciding alone, before asking other people, or when joining a Reality Skill group is not practical.
What this does
A solo decision protocol, not a generic pros-and-cons list.
The worksheet forces several moves that are easy to skip when thinking in your head: separate evidence from interpretation, create real alternatives, use the outside view, make models compete, identify high-value unknowns, quantify your belief, precommit to update conditions and return later to compare prediction with outcome.
02
Preserve epistemic labels
Keep facts, observations, interpretations, assumptions and unknowns separate.
03
Challenge the leading story
Create a competing model and specify evidence that would distinguish them.
04
Stop useless research
Identify the one missing fact most likely to change the action - and what is no longer worth learning.
05
Create a scored memory
Record confidence, update triggers and review date before hindsight rewrites the story.
06
Know when solo is insufficient
Use explicit stopping rules for high stakes, self-interest, tacit information and framing risk.
Interactive worksheet
Reality Map - Solo Decision Template
Take 20–45 minutes for an important decision. For low-stakes reversible decisions, stop much earlier.
Start with the 8–12 minute core path. Use the deeper fields only when the stakes and irreversibility justify more work.
Step 1 of 5Before snapshot
0% of decision safeguards capturedBefore Reality Skill · 60 seconds
How would you approach this decision right now?
Capture the instinct before the method changes it. There are no wrong answers and nothing leaves your browser.
1 · Frame the decision
What exactly are you deciding?
A vague problem creates vague thinking. Write the choice, deadline and objective in operational terms.
2 · Reality Map
Separate what reality gave you from what your mind added.
This is the center of the worksheet. Do not let interpretations quietly become facts.
3 · Options + outside view
Do not compare one favorite option against nothing.
4 · Competing models
Force your preferred explanation to compete.
A good decision process does not merely strengthen the leading story. It asks what else could explain the same evidence.
5 · Missing information + experiment
What is worth learning before you decide?
6 · Premortem
Assume your chosen plan failed badly. Why?
7 · Private estimate
Quantify before the story changes.
8 · Decision
Turn thinking into an explicit commitment.
9 · Solo stopping rule
When should you stop reasoning alone?
Check any condition that applies. The worksheet does not tell you to join a group; it tells you where independent outside information may have unusually high value.
If several are checked: get at least one independent outside view before committing. Ask the person to form their view before seeing yours.
Your process delta
What changed between the first instinct and the structured decision?
This compares the information you captured. It does not claim the outcome will be better; reality still gets the last word.
Decision safeguards captured0 / 8
What a group could add
Complete the stopping rule to see the value of outside input.
Ask about the groupPrivate decision history
Build evidence from your own decisions.
Save this snapshot locally, return after the outcome, and compare process completeness across decisions. Nothing is sent to Reality Skill.
10 · Outcome review
Come back after reality has had time to answer.
Optional AI second opinion
Turn your worksheet into a model-agnostic red-team brief.
Reality Skill does not send your decision anywhere. These buttons only generate text in your browser. You choose whether to copy it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, a local model, or another AI.
AI-ready case brief
Model-agnostic red-team prompt
Use AI after your own first view. It is most useful for finding contradictions, missing evidence, competing explanations, failure modes and questions you have not asked. It should not replace first-hand experience, factual verification or the final human decision. Any external claim that could change your action must be independently checked.
Privacy: entries are saved only in this browser using local storage. They are not submitted to Reality Skill. Use Clear to remove them from this browser.
One important limitation
Structure can improve solo thinking. It cannot manufacture information you do not have.
If the worksheet reveals a strong conflict of interest, a framing problem, missing tacit experience or several unresolved models, get an independent outside view. Ask the other person to form their view before seeing your preferred answer.
The purpose of Reality Skill is not to make every decision elaborate. It is to route important decisions to the lightest process that is sufficient.
Want an independent human layer?
The group protocol begins where the solo worksheet reaches its limit.
The Reality Skill circle adds independent human signals, first-hand experience, competing models, and later outcome review. The first Minsk cohort starts on 15 September and meets seven times every two weeks. The online group is still forming and will begin once a compatible cohort has assembled.