Tackle Your Project List with a Decision Matrix

*I’ve since learned after posting the video that this is called a decision matrix and is very popular with engineers. The more you know!

What is a Decision Matrix?

In layman’s terms, a decision matrix is a spreadsheet that allows you to assign different values, in different categories, to each of the decisions your trying to make, helping you make a precise analytical decision by summing up those values to rank each project/task/decision

Why I Use Decision Matrices

I’ve always been an extremely indecisive person. My whole life. If I was faced with multiple decisions that were difficult to differentiate between I would usually just freeze up and be stuck not moving in any direction.

I faced this dilemma the other day while looking around my shop trying to figure out what I was going to work on next. There were just so many projects I wanted to do, needed to do, and thought I should do, that I started to panic a bit and get very frustrated. But after a little cool down I remembered a process for weighing decisions and coming up with a mathematical action sheet that I had been using in my personal life for the last few years and thought, “Why not use it in the shop?” After a trial run, I realized it worked perfectly for organizing shop projects!

If you’d like to try out a Decision Matrix for yourself, the downloadable CSV file is available here:

How To Make A Decision Matrix

Creating a decision matrix is relatively easy and is short work with a pen and paper, but I prefer to use an Excel or Google Sheets spreadsheet. If you’d like to use a spreadsheet there’s is a downloadable sample available for free up above.