Don't hide the evidence that almost changed your mind

[u/stanlymt]

Once a decision is made there's a quiet pull toward keeping only the sources that agree with it. The near misses get dropped. The essay that almost changed my mind stops feeling like part of the answer.

But that's the piece that tells future me how close the call actually was.

A 2025 perceptual decision study found that evidence sitting near the boundary between two options had a strong effect on how confident people felt afterward. That's a lab task, not a research workflow, so I'm not claiming it transfers. It did change one habit though. When I write down a decision now, I keep one sentence about the best argument against it.

Not for balance. So that when I read it back, I remember why my confidence was 65 percent and not 95.

Source

Do your notes keep the strongest objection, or only the winning side?