## Definitions This is a categorisation of two distinct types of decisions coined by [[@Jeff Bezos]]: - **One-way door** (aka Type 1)—decisions that are almost impossible to reverse. Examples are firing an employee or selling your business. There's no going back from these. - **Two-way door** (aka Type 2)—decisions which are reversible. Examples include hiring a new employee, starting a new product/service, creating new pricing models. Such decisions may seem frightening at the time but can be modified or reversed, with some time and effort. As Bezos wrote in his [1997 Amazon shareholder letter](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312516530910/d168744dex991.htm): > Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible -- one-way doors -- and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don't like what you see on the other side, you can't get back to where you were before. > But most decisions aren't like that -- they are changeable, reversible -- they're two-way doors. If you've made a suboptimal Type 2 decision, you don't have to live with the consequences for that long. You can reopen the door and go back through. ## Putting into practice The usefulness of this distinction comes in the overwhelm that we often surround ourselves with when making (what we think are critically important) decisions. We tend to give too much weight to these decisions and thus get bogged down in analysis. By identifying a decision as a Two-way door (i.e. reversible), you can make it quicker and with much less of an emotional burden. The end result is that you will make more decisions over the course of your lifetime. And since decisions are what lead to opportunities, you (or your company) will grow more because of it. --- ## References - https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/why-emotionally-intelligent-people-embrace-2-way-doors-rule-to-make-better-faster-decisions.html - [Make reversable decisions](https://jhall.io/archive/2021/09/11/make-reversable-decisions/) by [[@Jonathan Hall]]