Use case · Decision log

A decision log you will actually keep

Decisions are made in meetings, chats and calls, and six months later nobody remembers why. A decision log keeps each choice next to its reasoning. In MnemoNotes you start one on your own in seconds, and share it with your team when it is useful. It is end-to-end encrypted, so it can hold the real reasons, not the version that is safe to put in a wiki.

One note per decision

Write what was decided, why, and what would make you revisit it. Tag who was involved with @ and the area with #, and link related decisions with +. The note’s first line is its title, so the log reads as a list of decisions, newest first, grouped by day.

A template to copy

Paste this into a new note and fill it in. Notes are Markdown, so the headings stay headings. Skip what does not apply: a two-line decision is better than none.

Decision: what you decided, in one line

## Context
What made this a question now.

## Options considered
- Option A: why not.
- Option B: why not.

## Why
The reasons for the choice, including the trade-offs you accepted.

## Revisit when
What would make you look at this again.

Start with your own log

You don’t need a team to keep a decision log. Write down why you chose one approach over another, what you agreed with someone, or why you said no. Tag it with @ and # as you go, and add it to a document such as “My decisions” with /. Months later, filter on the person, the topic or the month you remember, and the reasoning is there.

Share it with your team

When the log is useful to others, make it a shared document: every note in it is shared with every member, so the whole team keeps its decisions in one place.

New members catch up on day one

Everyone added to a shared document can read every note in it, back to the first one. Someone who joins the team today can read why the payments retry window is three days, instead of asking around or reopening the discussion.

People who leave lose access

Remove someone and the document gets a new key that they never receive. Nothing added or changed after they leave reaches them. What they wrote while they were a member stays in the log.

Every edit has a name on it

Each note keeps a history that shows who changed what. If a decision is edited in a way that loses something, restore an earlier version. Members are editors or viewers: editors write and change notes, viewers read them.

Private by default, even from me

Decision logs contain things you would not want in a data breach: vendor negotiations, security trade-offs, people decisions. MnemoNotes encrypts them on each member’s device. The server knows the document exists and who its members are, but not its name or anything in it. How sharing works without giving me the key.

Set it up

On your own, sign in and write your first decision. For a team:

1. Create an account and add your teammates as contacts with an invite link.
2. Create a shared document, for example “Platform team decisions”.
3. Add your teammates as editors, or as viewers if they only need to read.
4. Write the first decision.