--- title: Automatic Rules: Cure for Brain's Misclicks | daily.dev description: A software engineer shares personal 'automatic rules' — predefined constraints that prevent impulsive, regrettable decisions under pressure. Examples include... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/zvuy5xjmj twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Automatic Rules: Cure for Brain's Misclicks | daily.dev og:description: A software engineer shares personal 'automatic rules' — predefined constraints that prevent impulsive, regrettable decisions under pressure. Examples include... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/zvuy5xjmj og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/zVuy5xjmj.png og:image:alt: Post cover image og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Automatic Rules: Cure for Brain's Misclicks **[Engineering Leadership](https://daily.dev/sources/engineeringleadership)** · [@poczwardowski](https://daily.dev/poczwardowski) · 2 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A software engineer shares personal 'automatic rules' — predefined constraints that prevent impulsive, regrettable decisions under pressure. Examples include never estimating during client calls, not making hiring decisions on interview day, and avoiding production deployments before leaving. Drawing on Daniel Kahneman's insight that rules outperform in-the-moment judgment, the author recommends analyzing past decision logs to identify patterns and create personal circuit breakers. The post ends with a prompt to reflect on what rule would have prevented your worst recent decision. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Using My Fucking Brain](https://daily.dev/posts/using-my-fucking-brain-mmhyilgpb) · Terrible Software · 221 upvotes · 29 comments - [Why the Best Software Advice Is the Hardest to Follow](https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-best-software-advice-is-the-hardest-to-follow-q1ctdahcj) · DEV · 39 upvotes · 5 comments - [How to Beat Decision Fatigue](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-beat-decision-fatigue-m9ep1r313) · Tech Lead Digest · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [WHY WE TRUST AI-GENERATED CODE BEFORE WE VERIFY IT](https://daily.dev/posts/why-we-trust-ai-generated-code-before-we-verify-it-bmsbpoml4) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/zvuy5xjmj) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/zvuy5xjmj","headline":"Automatic Rules: Cure for Brain's Misclicks","text":"Shared: Automatic Rules: Cure for Brain's Misclicks","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/zvuy5xjmj","datePublished":"2026-02-26T11:42:19.649Z","dateModified":"2026-02-26T11:42:55.035Z","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Michal Poczwardowski","url":"https://daily.dev/poczwardowski","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--yUL1bgRR--/f_auto/v1716845198/avatars/avatar_018yCb4lvyJjNNj2qvHTH","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"EndorseAction"},"userInteractionCount":1180}},"image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--0_ODbtD2--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2008","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"sharedContent":{"@type":"WebPage","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/ieR7KG8Tp"},"isPartOf":{"@type":"WebPage","url":"https://daily.dev/squads/engineeringleadership","name":"Engineering Leadership"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Engineering Leadership","item":"https://daily.dev/squads/engineeringleadership"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Automatic Rules: Cure for Brain's Misclicks"}]} ```