Happy New Year! If you’re like most of us, you’re back to work, making decisions, large, small, and everything in between. One of my favorite decision-making tools is the keep-stop-start method, which can be used by both teams and individuals. With this method, you ask three questions:

1. What’s working that we want to keep?
2. What’s NOT working that is harming us, keeping us from our goal, or just wasting our time, that we want to stop?
3. What are we not yet doing that if we were to start doing would have the greatest positive impact?

This method helps us to approach decision-making with our future situation in mind.

One of my managerial pet peeves is how often people never go back to evaluate their decisions. It’s just decision after decision, after decision, with no assessment. Here’s the thing to remember: A decision is neither finished nor able to be deemed good (or bad) until it’s been assessed. You also need to decide at the outset when it’s the appropriate time to assess (A month out? Quarterly? Every six months?). Schedule the assessment and stick to it. It keeps you honest — and impresses your team.

When you’re faced with a decision, ask yourself three things:

1. Why am I making this decision, this way?
2. What problem does it solve, or what goal is it trying to reach?
3. How am I going to measure success?

It’s best to determine NOW which core questions you’ll ask at evaluation time, because right now, you have a clear head and a good understanding of what you’re aiming for. And six months from now you’re likely to approach the assessment from a less rational, more emotional, justification-driven place if you don’t set your goalposts now. When it comes time for assessment, do your best to keep a level head (remember, predetermined evaluation criteria help a ton here). Decisions are rarely a wholesale failure or success but, instead, an iterative, evolutionary process.

So “x” months after you’ve made a decision, ask what is not working? Be honest, fair, and courageous with yourself (because hey, it seemed like the right idea at the time!). Then, stop what’s not working.

What is working? Whatever that is, keep it.

How are you doing against your goals on a scale of 1-10? What’s the gap? And what do you need to do going forward to close that gap and achieve your goal? Start that.

Finally, most people’s schedules are so full that they can’t start anything new unless they stop doing some of their current activities and tasks. When you stop something, you’re choosing to make space for the new efforts.

Adapted fromSteven Fulmer e-mail December 21, 2023. Steven can be reached at stevenfulmer.com.

Gary Langenwalter