Two complementary Bezos heuristics in one skill. (A) Two-Way Door — classify decisions by reversibility; reversible = decide fast with 70% info, irreversible = decide slow with 90% info. (B) Regret Minimization — for life-defining choices, project to age 80 and pick what minimizes regret. Use Two-Way Door triggers on Chinese 决策瘫痪 / 反复纠结小事 / 开了三次会还没定 / 大事小事一样慢; Regret Min triggers on 离职 / 创业 / 移民 / 结婚 / 生育 / 转行 / 重大决定 / 这辈子. Especially when team applies identical heavy process to all decisions (need Two-Way), or when user faces once-in-a-decade pivot where rational analysis ties (need Regret Min). Do NOT misclassify One-Way as Two-Way (most expensive mistake), use Regret Min for daily decisions (age-80 view on "what to eat" is meaningless), or run Regret Min in heated emotion (cool 24-48h first to avoid romanticizing risk).
Use BEFORE selecting any other decision framework — Cynefin (kuh-NEV-in) classifies WHICH framework fits the current situation across 5 domains (Clear / Complicated / Complex / Chaotic / Confused). Triggers when user is about to apply a method and the fit feels off, asks meta-questions like "should we follow SOP or explore?", or when same approach that worked last time seems wrong now. Also use after failure when "the method was right but the situation didn't match", or when team argues over deterministic-plan-vs-experimentation. Especially valuable at the start of major decisions to avoid using the wrong hammer for the nail. Do NOT use for trivial classified decisions (don't run Cynefin for "what to eat for lunch"), true Chaotic situations needing immediate stabilizing action (act first, classify later), or teams unfamiliar with the model (use simpler known/unknown binary).
Use when user reports overwhelm from too many tasks, asks for week/sprint/OKR planning help, or describes spending 'all day firefighting' while long-term projects stall. Triggers on Chinese phrases 太多事 / 不知道先做哪个 / 排不过来 / 周计划 / sprint planning / 救火 / 优先级 / overwhelm / 焦虑 / 做不完 / todo 列表炸了, and explicit task triage requests. Especially valuable when waiting list has 15+ pending items, or when user says "重要的事一直推不动 / 都在做紧急的事". Do NOT use for small lists (<5 items just sort by deadline), team-level responsibility assignment (use RAPID/DACI from backlog), or when importance needs quantitative weighting (use weighted decision matrix).
Use when user is stuck by industry conventions ("大家都这么做"), faces a new problem with no precedent, or finds current solutions arbitrarily expensive (intuition says "it shouldn't cost this much"). Triggers on Chinese phrases 行业惯例 / 大家都这么做 / 为什么不能 / 这么贵不合理 / 颠覆性 / 从零开始, and English signals "everyone does it this way", "why is it so expensive", "let's think from scratch". Decompose to irreducible physical/logical truths then rebuild — bypasses analogy thinking. Musk's secret. Do NOT use for problems with proven best practice (Cynefin Clear domain — use SOP), time-critical decisions (first principles takes hours-days), high-emotion contexts (cool down first), or in low-psychological-safety teams (will create conflict with authority).
Use for incident/bug root-cause analysis, postmortem, recurring-problem diagnosis, or process improvement. Triggers on Chinese phrases 复盘 / 根因 / postmortem / 又坏了 / 老是 / 重复出现 / 这不是第一次 / 为啥总是 / RCA, and English signals "this keeps happening", "RCA", "post-mortem", "incident review". Ask "why?" 3-7 times (5 is average not rule) until hit a process/system/design root that can be changed — not the symptom. Do NOT use for one-off random events (could be noise — observe first), Cynefin Complex-domain problems (5 Whys assumes linear causality, complex systems have multi-cause emergence), teams in blame-mode (Why will become 因为 X 不靠谱 chain), or truly unknowable causes (ML model outputs — use statistics not 5 Whys).
Use when user pursues an abstract goal where the path to success is unclear but the path to failure is concrete — '想做出好产品' / '想长寿' / '想升 staff' / '战略方向' / '怎么变得更好'. Triggers Munger's "invert, always invert" mental model: ask 'how do I GUARANTEE failure?' then avoid those. Also use when user is stuck brainstorming positive actions ('should I do X or Y'), facing analysis paralysis on abstract criteria, or when industry advice gives contradictory positive recommendations. Especially powerful for investment decisions, hiring criteria, product PRDs, strategic direction. Do NOT use for concrete quantifiable goals (use OKR), low-cost trial decisions (just try), or in teams already in self-blame mode (will be heard as criticism).
Use when decisions must happen under time pressure or in adversarial/changing conditions — production incidents (P0, on-call, live debugging, rollback choices), competitive moves, real-time negotiations, anything where the situation reacts to your action. Triggers on Chinese phrases 事故 / P0 / 故障 / 排障 / oncall / 救火 / 谈判 / 实时 / 紧急 / 来不及, and English signals "incident", "outage", "live", "real-time", "the other side just". Especially when information is arriving while you must respond, when 5-minute decision cycles beat 1-hour ones, or when you catch yourself wanting to "analyze more" while the situation degrades. Do NOT use for slow life decisions (use wrap), for problems where information is already complete (use eisenhower-matrix or weighted decision matrix), or for Cynefin Clear-domain SOPs.
Use BEFORE committing to a plan, project, hire, launch, funding round, or any irreversible decision. Triggers on Chinese phrases 即将启动 / 上线前 / 发布前 / kick off / 拍板 / 决定要做 / 万事俱备 / 一切都准备好了, and English "before we launch", "ready to ship", "let's commit to". Especially when the team is in a "this is definitely going to work" high-confidence mode (the most dangerous moment), or when user has vague unease they can't articulate. Pre-mortem assumes the plan has already failed 12 months from now, then asks 'why?' — releases concerns silenced by group enthusiasm. Do NOT use after the decision is already irreversible (do post-mortem prep instead), on low-stakes reversible trials, or in teams with low psychological safety (will become political attack).