Too many ideas → one decision
Too many ideas and no clue where to start?
Too many ideas in your head, so many that in the end you get lost and put none of them into practice. Here is a small exercise: everything you need is on this page, with pen and paper. In the 5D Method this is the D of Direction: you choose which road deserves you before you start walking.
The exercise
One matrix, three scores, one number.
The matrix has two axes: effort on one side (difficulty plus time), gain on the other. Four boxes come out of it, and each box tells you what to do with the ideas that land there. Draw it on a sheet of paper: a cross is enough.
Easy moves · little effort, high gain
Start here. These are the ideas that pay for everything else: they bring results while the bigger ones take shape.
Big bets · a lot of effort, high gain
Worth it, but not first. You fund them with the easy moves, otherwise they die in month one.
Fill-ins · little effort, little gain
Fine for a slow afternoon. They fill the gaps, they do not change your year.
Black holes · a lot of effort, little gain
Cross them out without guilt. Every hour that goes in here is an hour taken from the two boxes above.
- Dump all the ideasOne line per idea. No filters and no judgment.
- Place them in the matrixFor each one ask yourself: how much effort (difficulty + time)? How much gain?
- Score from 1 to 5For each idea left in the top boxes, give a score from 1 to 5 on ease, speed and gain, then multiply the three scores.
- Start from the highest numberThat is where it pays to begin, especially if you need results fast.
The highest number tells you where to start, not which idea is the best in absolute terms: big bets are funded by easy moves.
Want to give it a try?
Take fifteen minutes: a pencil and some honesty are enough. If you prefer the printed version, download the worksheet, put it on the desk and fill it in by hand.
Who is behind this
Dr. Donato De Tullio. For more than ten years I have been running projects in large European multinationals. After 8 years in science I worked as a warehouse worker at Decathlon and rebuilt a career from zero: today I manage 8 logistics centers across Europe. It's all on my LinkedIn.
Alongside my job as a manager, I help people who run their own project decide and move, with the 5D Method: data, direction, decision, destination, desire. If after the exercise you want a steady partner at your side, there is Decision Lab, the one-on-one decision-making program.
What happens when you stop ruminating
Ideas become moves.
- One client sold his package at twice the price, on the very first call.
- A professional came in with blocks and left saying, in her own words: "they stopped being a weight and started turning into direction".
- A founder, after a 2-hour workshop, had a concrete service and the first contact within 2 days.
Done the exercise?
Let's go over it together.
30 minutes, free, over a virtual coffee. In English, Italian or German.
I stopped asking for email addresses in exchange for resources: the exercise is yours, no contact details required. If you like it, have a look at the English home, check out the book "Stay or Leave?", out in September 2026 and already open for pre-orders, and we can talk over a coffee.