Decision Room.

Safety first

It watches every message, not only the first. If one shows a crisis (thoughts of self harm, danger at home, a medical emergency) it stops and says this needs a person, not a decision tool: the local emergency number, a crisis line you look up for your country and someone you trust. For heavy money worries or a long low mood it suggests a doctor, a counsellor or a debt adviser.

The decision card

In one message, at most five questions: the decision in one sentence and the deadline as a date, your options (always plus keep things as they are, at most four in total), the three things you value most, your own numbers and your biggest fear and who else is affected. Guessed numbers are marked and unknown ones stay unknown, never filled in from general knowledge. You confirm the card before the advisors start.

Five advisors, blind

Each advisor gets the card and its own role, never another's answer. Each gives a lean (an option, test first or not now), a two sentence reason and one thing to watch out for, in at most 70 words.

• 01You at 80Looks back on this year and asks which choice you would regret not making, judged only by your values.
• 02Your most honest friendSays what you are avoiding or telling yourself. Kind, never soft.
• 03The accountantUses only your numbers and shows the sum and its assumption.
• 04The pessimistThe most likely way it goes wrong, how bad that is and whether it can be undone.
• 05Someone who made this choiceA perspective in the conditional, never a real person, a study or a statistic.

The chair

The chair reads all five and gives one verdict, with a seven day test and the one question whose answer would change it. If the accountant marks a missing number as deciding, the verdict cannot be do it, and finding that number becomes the test. The test is something you can actually do, such as a conversation, a calculation, a trial day, a visit or a written draft, never anything paid, binding or hard to undo.

Do itTest it firstNot now

After the verdict

Answer the question and it asks before running the chair again. Come back after the test and the card is updated with what you learned, and it asks before running the whole room again.