Decision Maker

What is the Decision Maker?

The Decision Maker is a wheel with room for thinking. Alongside each option you can record a short description and its pros and cons, which more often than not resolves the decision before you ever press the button. If it does not, the draw gives you a clean, unbiased answer.

Weights are supported and always visible: if you decide an option deserves twice the chance, the slice grows to match and the result is labelled as a weighted draw.

How to use it

1. Enter your options, one per line.
2. Open “Notes, pros and cons” and fill in whatever helps you think.
3. If some options genuinely deserve more chance, set weights in the entry options.
4. Press Decide for a spin, or set Animation to “No animation” in Options for an instant answer.
5. Record the result, or remove the chosen option and decide again from what is left.

How the random selection works

Without weights, each option gets an equal slice and an equal chance from a rejection-sampled draw. With weights, the tool converts each weight into integer tickets, draws one ticket uniformly, and finds the option that owns it — so an option weighted 3 against two options weighted 1 wins exactly three times in five over the long run. The wheel is drawn to match those proportions, so what you see is what the maths does.

The full algorithm — including the rejection-sampling step and the wheel stop-angle calculation — is written out on the methodology page.

Practical examples

• Choosing between four viable project approaches when the team is evenly split.
• Picking which of six chores gets done first on a Saturday morning.
• Deciding which restaurant to try when everyone has said “I don’t mind”.
• Selecting which feature to prototype when all of them are worth doing.
• Choosing a holiday destination from a shortlist everyone has already agreed on.

Available options

• Unlimited options with per-option descriptions, pros and cons.
• Optional weights with visible percentages.
• Wheel view or instant result.
• Shuffle option order, remove the chosen option, or spin again.
• History log with copy and CSV export.

Privacy

Notes about a decision can be personal. Everything you type stays in this browser tab. There is no account, no upload step and no server-side copy of your list: the draw runs in JavaScript on your own device. Nothing is written to browser storage unless you explicitly save a list or tick the option to keep your draw history, and both can be cleared at any time from the privacy page. Notes, pros and cons are held in the page only and are cleared the moment you reload.

Full details are in the privacy policy, which also has a button that deletes everything this site has stored in your browser.

Fairness and limitations

The draw is unbiased, but a random answer is only appropriate when you would genuinely accept any of the options. If one option is clearly better and you are hoping the wheel picks it, you already have your answer. And for decisions involving health, money, law or personal safety, please use professional advice and your own judgement — a random choice cannot weigh consequences.