Pre-decisions are defaults — follow them automatically unless genuinely new information justifies override, not familiar resistance in novelty costume

Why This Is a Rule

Pre-decisions (implementation intentions, pre-commitments, if-then plans) only save cognitive resources when they're treated as defaults — actions that execute automatically without re-deliberation. The moment you re-open a pre-decision for debate at execution time, you've lost the entire benefit: you're back to making the decision from scratch, under worse conditions (in-the-moment fatigue, emotional state, temptation proximity).

The critical discrimination task is distinguishing genuine context changes from familiar resistance disguised as new information. Genuine context changes are objective: "I pre-decided to run at 6am, but there's a thunderstorm." Familiar resistance constructs plausible-sounding reasons: "I pre-decided to run at 6am, but I didn't sleep well" (you rarely sleep perfectly), "but I have a lot of work today" (you always have a lot of work), "but I should ease into it" (you said this yesterday too). The disguise is the key danger — resistance doesn't announce itself as resistance; it presents as reasonable reconsideration.

Gollwitzer's research on implementation intentions shows they work precisely because they delegate action initiation to environmental cues rather than deliberative processing. Re-opening the decision at execution time overrides this delegation, returning control to the deliberative system that is most vulnerable to motivational interference.

When This Fires

• When a pre-decision reaches its trigger condition and you feel the urge to reconsider
• When "good reasons" to override a pre-commitment appear at execution time
• When designing pre-decision systems and needing to specify when overrides are legitimate
• When reviewing why pre-commitments failed — usually because they were treated as suggestions rather than defaults

Common Failure Mode

Treating pre-decisions as "strong suggestions" rather than defaults. "I planned to write at 9am, but I feel like checking email first." The pre-decision specified 9am writing. The "feel like" is not new information — it's the familiar pull of the easier option. Every pre-decision faces this at execution time. If the default isn't binding, the pre-decision was just a wish.

The Protocol

(1) When a pre-decision's trigger fires, begin executing immediately — no deliberation pause. The decision was already made. (2) If an override urge appears, apply the novelty test: "Is this information I couldn't have anticipated when I made the pre-decision?" If no → it's resistance. Execute the default. (3) If yes (genuinely new: injury, emergency, material context change) → override is legitimate. (4) Keep an override log: every time you override a pre-decision, record the reason. Review weekly. If the same "reason" appears repeatedly, it's not new information — it's a pattern of resistance that needs a structural fix, not ongoing exceptions. (5) Legitimate override rate should be below 10%. If you're overriding more than 1 in 10 pre-decisions, either your pre-decisions are poorly calibrated (Design defaults for your actual self under realistic conditions — they must hold when capacity is low, not just when motivation is high) or your override criteria are too loose.