đThe three rooms of a decision
Charles Dickensâ Christmas Eve spine: look once at the past, once at the present, once at the path, and then warm a single change while it still has heat.
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Christmas Eve has a strange intelligence.
Rooms go quiet, clocks get louder, and you can feel which parts of your work are out of step with how you actually want to build.
I donât want a grand reinvention tonight. I want one honest look and one small move that will still make sense in the morning.
Thatâs why Iâm sitting with Charles Dickens; not for sentimentality, but for sequence.
A Christmas Carol (1843) isnât moralizing; itâs choreography.
He shows a man what he edited from his past, what heâs refusing in the present, and where those habits will lead, and then he gives him one night to begin.
The change works because itâs specific, visible, and started while the feeling is warm.
Last week we talked about giving decisions a body people can carry.
This is different.
Think of it as the Christmas Eve pass: a softer, more personal spine you can run in twenty quiet minutes to align one piece of work with your actual values.
room one: the past you stopped counting
Pick one decision thatâs been dragging you sideways.
Donât write a speech. Write a receipt from the past: a single example where you traded clarity for speed and then let the exception become the rule.
One date, one sentence. Thatâs enough to see drift without shaming yourself for it.
room two: the present youâve been stepping over
Stand in the current week and name who bears the cost of how it works now.
If itâs you, say so. If itâs the person who always âsavesâ the sprint, say that. If itâs the customer who waits and doesnât complain, say their name.
Keep it human. Dickens made change by making the impact visible.
room three: the future that shows up if nothing changes
Look ninety days out.
If you keep this decision as-is, what will you have to live with?
One consequence is enough. Make it concrete: another brittle handoff, a message no one reads, a Friday youâd rather not repeat.
Pause.
No frameworks. Just three short notes: where drift began, who carries the weight now, and what youâre actually buying if you do nothing.
Thatâs the Dickens spine; past, present, and future held in your hand, not on a slide.
the eve move (one night, one promise)
Hereâs where we break from last week.
You donât need a policy. You need one promise that can survive the morning.
Write a single sentence you will keep for the next seven days.
Keep it small and concrete, the kind of thing you could point to on a kitchen counter.
Examples you can adapt:
âFrom Tuesday on, we post the decision where the work lives and set the review date at the same time.â
âOur âreadyâ note includes three checks and a name. If we canât write it, we donât start.â
âI send one short status update that my team can forward. If it isnât forwarded once this week, I change it.â
No declarations about the year; just a week-long promise you can test without fanfare.
Dickens didnât ask Scrooge to become a saint by sunrise. He asked him to begin in public.
keep it warm (the 24-hour grace window)
Good intentions decay overnight.
Give your promise heat: post it before lunch tomorrow so it will be seen by the people it touches.
If you canât post it, it wasnât a real promise; write a smaller one you can keep.
The point isnât heroics; itâs alignment in real weather.
a gentler example (lightly disguised)
A team that âmoves fastâ keeps breaking in the same place: late clarifications, private DMs, and last-minute saves.
The notes from the rooms look like this:
Past: During the spring launch, we said yes to mid-sprint changes and never reset.
Present: Engineers carry night pings; PMs apologize a lot; customers get uneven release notes.
Future: Trust feels thin by March; we celebrate ârescue workâ instead of clean work.
Their Eve promise isnât a crackdown.
Itâs a single public sentence:
âFor the next seven days, weâll only treat a change as âreadyâ if it has a link, a tiny checklist, and one owner on the ticket. Next Wednesday, we look at how many times that saved a night ping.â
They post the line, keep it boring, and make a date to talk.
By Friday, no one is asking where to put updates. The room is quieter. Not perfect. Quieter.
