Most decisions don’t fail because they were wrong. They fail because they never became real. You don’t need certainty to move. You need a decision that can close. This is the filter to achieve those things. Not a productivity trick. Not a checklist to obsess over. But a way to shorten doubt so you can develop a bias towards action, not perfection.

The Advance Filter is useful for:

• projects
• ideas
• career directions
• collaborations 
• conversations

Whatever you're working on or doing that tends to become complicated over time, possibly getting you stuck somewhere in the process, run it through the Advance Filter and find the clarity you need in those moments.

The concept is simple: A good decision is not necessarily correct. A good decision ensures you can finish something.

The way you achieve that? A couple of simple questions to ask yourself, and some exercises to guide you to the answers, lead to a decision framework for creative people stuck in overwhelm, but too ambitious to give up.

A decision framework for creative people stuck in overwhelm, but too ambitious to give up.

The Advance Filter

Whenever something feels unresolved, heavy, unclear, or mentally noisy, assume one thing: You’re holding an open loop. An open loop is any commitment, idea, direction, or responsibility that hasn’t reached a clear end. It’s something still running in the background of your mind. Silently hogging resources. Making everything you do a little more difficult than it needs to be.

Instead of overthinking your open loops, use these questions to pressure-test and get rid of them:

1. Can it close?
2. Is it small enough?
3. Are the boundaries clear?
4. Is it mine?
5. What’s the real risk?

We’ll go through them one by one to make them concrete, actionable, and applicable in real life situations.