Decide if you're overthinking this or genuinely not ready to decide
More deliberation feels responsible right up until it's just anxiety wearing a diligence costume.
- Use it for
- Anyone stuck circling a decision who can't tell if they need more thought or just need to decide.
Deliberation and overthinking feel identical from the inside — both involve continuing to think about a decision — but they're different: deliberation surfaces genuinely new considerations, while overthinking re-circles the same ones without adding anything, driven by anxiety about being wrong rather than a real information gap. This prompt checks which one is actually happening.
When not to use this
If you genuinely haven't thought through the decision's major considerations yet, this isn't overthinking — do the actual deliberation first, then check.
Did this work?
You know honestly whether continuing to deliberate would surface genuinely new information, or if you're circling the same considerations you've already accounted for.
Tested on claude-opus-5. Evidence status is draft; it moves to battle-tested only on recorded runs, never by hand.