Additional details about the AREA Cheetah Sheets

Doing research to solve a complex problem—even focused, limited research—is messy. There’s a wealth of information and details to keep track of. I suggest keeping all of your research organized in an AREA Journal.

Record the data, your impressions about the information, and the date of each entry. By cataloging your work and thoughts you will not only have a record that you can refer back to as you move through the AREA process, but you will also prevent thesis creep, those pesky evolving hypotheses that make us feel that we have a rational reason to do something despite a change in circumstances or a lack of data. Your written records will also provide you with a roadmap for your research.
What does your roadmap look like? Every AREA journey will follow the same itinerary:

• • Your decision problem
  • Your vision of success. If the decision is successful what has happened?
  • Your Critical Concepts, derived from your vision of success
  • Your A, R, E&E, and A research, analysis, and thesis statements
  • Your decision

At the points in Problem Solved and in Investing In Financial Research where I recommend a Cheetah Pause, a strategic stop in your work, I include a Cheetah Sheet—a graphic organizer that will help you build and hone the skills that you need to carry out the AREA Method. The Cheetah Sheets highlight sources of information, provide you with key questions to ask of the data you collect, and offer interpretation and analysis guidelines. They also provide you with checklists and exercises to help you effectively and efficiently conduct your research and hone your Critical Concepts.

Download your own AREA Cheetah Sheets today to write the story of not only your research and decision-making process, but also a book about you as a decision-maker. The goal: To help you gain confidence and conviction to make your big decisions better.

The Problem Solved AREA Journal contains 24 Cheetah Sheets that deal with making both personal and professional complex decisions.

The Investing In Financial Research AREA Journal roadmap is largely the same as Problem Solved but is focused on financial and investment decisions. It contains 51 Cheetah Sheets to drill down deeper into company financials, an in-depth discussion of fraud and deception, and includes many more financially focused Cheetah Sheets.

As you document in your AREA Journal the material you collect and analyze through the Cheetah Sheets, I encourage you to record both the questions that arise during the process and the answers you find. You’ll sum up each “chapter” of your work—A, R, E&E, and A—by consolidating your learning with one or more thesis statements. These statements sum up your research, your findings, your interpretation of your findings, and your judgment about what it all means.