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For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the ""Done!"" podcast:

Some­times we get involved in a project or work­group where every­thing is hap­pen­ing very fast. All par­tic­i­pat­ing col­leagues are eager to get mov­ing on what you decide to do and it becomes dif­fi­cult to keep the deci­sion-mak­ing con­tained to the reg­u­lar, for­mal­ized meet­ings. Things come up and some­one in charge must make a deci­sion fast, which they do, and the per­son who need­ed a deci­sion to be made can now keep working.

But, every­one was not aware that a new deci­sion had been made. It is easy for some­one who does not know what the out­come was to make the assump­tion, or mis­take even, that noth­ing has changed and keep work­ing using the orig­i­nal plan as their van­tage point. Time is wast­ed, some­thing is made in the wrong way, and work will have to be redone.

An unmis­tak­able loca­tion for decisions

If this sit­u­a­tion sounds famil­iar, one of the solu­tions to the prob­lem is to cre­ate a deci­sion-log — a place where it is easy to make a quick note of any new deci­sions that are made in the progress of the project and which every­one has access to.

Here you write down any­thing that influ­ences what gets done in the project and how. It will become eas­i­er for every­one to stay up to date with the process, and also for any­one of you to check back and see what you had decid­ed if you should need to remind your­selves. Mind you, this sug­ges­tion only applies to projects, not your nev­er-end­ing, day-to-day work.

Do this

If it sounds like a good idea to cre­ate a deci­sion-log for the col­lab­o­ra­tion or project you are involved in right now, do the following:

1. Cre­ate a doc­u­ment in a tool in which you can make a table, such as Word or Excel.
2. Cre­ate a table that con­tains columns along the lines of ​“Date”, ​“Deci­sion”, ​“When/​where the deci­sion was made”, ​“Who made the deci­sion”, and so on.
3. Agree with the peo­ple you are col­lab­o­rat­ing with that all deci­sions will be writ­ten in the log — regard­less of when, where, and how the deci­sion was made, and whether it was in or out­side of a meeting.
4. As soon as you decide some­thing, write it in the log. It does not mat­ter if the deci­sion is men­tioned in your notes from the meet­ing or some­where else as well. It is still worth the effort of iden­ti­fy­ing the deci­sions and not­ing them in the log so that you do not have to flick through dif­fer­ent sets of notes just to remind your­self of what you agreed to do. (You do not have to log deci­sions that con­cern some­one doing some­thing since you will write this down in what­ev­er tool you are using to keep the project on track.)
5. Done!

Few­er mis­un­der­stand­ings, more focus forward

If you keep a log of all the deci­sions made in the col­lab­o­ra­tive projects where things move fast and deci­sions are made on the fly, you will have some­where to refer to when you need to know what you have agreed to do — even if the deci­sion was made quick­ly and not every­one was involved in the process. You will have few­er mis­un­der­stand­ings to deal with, less time will be wast­ed, less unnec­es­sary effort will be made, and you can spend your time and ener­gy doing the right things at the right time instead.

The next time your col­league says ​“When did we decide that!?”, you can, from now on, answer ​“Dur­ing the brief, spon­ta­neous, and urgent meet­ing on the 11^th of August”. No doubts, no hesitation.

What’s your way?

How have you kept track of past deci­sions made and how has it been use­ful to you and/​or your team? If you have any expe­ri­ence with this method, please write and share your thoughts!

(Do you want to know more about how you can cre­ate a sense of con­trol when a lot is going on? Feel free to read my tips for six ways to keep all cur­rent projects in motion!)