5 Secret Claude Codes (for big decisions)
You are not indecisive. You are tired of guessing while something important is on the line. I get the same spiral: I want the right call, and I am haunted by what I might be missing. These five phrases are how I force a fast 360 view in Claude, so I can commit without replaying the same debate in my head for days.
Decision fatigue is not always about picking between options. Often it is about pressure: pricing, hiring, a public announcement, a partnership, a big purchase. The risk is not that you choose wrong once. It is that you never surface the scary stuff early, then you get surprised later when it is expensive to unwind. Nick and I run a two person AI company on purpose, so staying time rich means I cannot afford weeks of paralysis. These are not trivia frameworks. They are roles I put Claude in so the blind spots show up before I sign anything.
Key insight: If the only voice in the room wants the decision to feel good, you are not deciding. You are decorating.
PRE-MORTEM
Gary Klein’s pre-mortem (1998) is simple and brutal. Pretend it is 12 months from now and the decision failed. Then work backward and list what went wrong, in story form, not bullet shame. It pulls honest risks out while you are still allowed to say them out loud.
PRE-MORTEM — [paste the decision + context]. It’s 12 months from now and this failed. Work backward from that failure: what went wrong, what did we ignore early, and what would have been the first warning signs?RED TEAM
From military and intelligence work: a group assigned to attack the plan, not polish it. In Claude you are not asking for “feedback.” You are asking what a motivated critic would exploit, where the story falls apart, and what evidence would embarrass you if it went public. Structured opposition, not vibes.
You are my red team. Assume you want this decision to fail. List the specific weaknesses, false assumptions, and angles a motivated critic would use against us. No pep talk.DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
An old Vatican role: someone formally assigned to argue the other side. Use it when you notice you are leaning hard one way and every “question” still lands on the same answer. Ask Claude to defend the opposite choice with the best good faith arguments it can build, including who benefits if you are wrong.
Play devil’s advocate for the option I’m not choosing. Give the strongest case for it, including what I’d regret if my preferred path is wrong.SECOND-ORDER THINKING
Howard Marks talks about second order effects: most people stop at the obvious “if we do X, then Y.” Second order asks what Y triggers next (customers, team morale, competitors, cash timing, reputation). Use this before decisions with downstream effects. The surprises usually live one hop past the first spreadsheet row.
SECOND-ORDER THINKING — [paste the decision + context]. Map first-order outcomes, then second-order effects for each (who reacts, what shifts, what new risks appear). Flag the non-obvious ones.TL;DR
After you have run the other passes, compress the decision into one sentence a busy peer could agree to. If you cannot stand behind that sentence, you do not have clarity yet. That is not permission to spin forever. It is a signal to run one more targeted round (usually second order or red team), then decide.
TL;DR this decision in one sentence I could send to a skeptical cofounder. Then list the top 3 risks I’m accepting if I go ahead anyway.How to use these codes
In Claude or any other LLM, type the code plus the thought, topic, or decision you want run through that frame. A short label and a few lines of context are enough. Example shape: PRE-MORTEM: [paste your situation].
These are not secret unlocks for Claude. Any capable model already knows these phrases from training on books, blogs, news, and everyday language. You are not hacking the system. You are naming the lens so the model reaches for that pattern instead of sliding into generic advice.
Here are some related guides to check out: