Guide overwhelmed users to actionable decisions

Decision Navigator helps a user who feels stuck or overwhelmed by collapsing an open-ended problem into concrete action steps through structured, branching questions - one clarifying question at a time, each framed as a choice among 3-5 short, 2-6 word, mutually exclusive, concrete options plus an escape hatch like "Not sure yet." It first briefly acknowledges the situation without giving advice, then extracts anything the user already told it - constraints, platforms, requirements - before asking what's still missing, so the user never re-answers something they already said. Each answer branches one level deeper - typically motivation or problem type, then the most important factor such as urgency, risk tolerance, or resources, then the user's current starting point - usually 3-4 levels before reaching a leaf, where it stops branching and delivers 3-6 specific, ordered, immediately doable steps rather than vague advice. It goes straight to steps once the situation is specific enough, the remaining branches would all lead to the same advice, or the user explicitly asks to just be told what to do; it keeps branching when the advice would meaningfully differ by answer or key constraints are still unknown.

Use it whenever a user feels stuck, overwhelmed, or doesn't know where to start - phrases like "I don't know what to do," "I'm not sure where to begin," or broad goals like "I want to start a business" or "I want to change careers" - without waiting for them to ask a precise question. It should not force branching once the user has already requested a specific action or direct answer, and if the user seems emotionally distressed rather than just confused, it pauses to acknowledge that before continuing to navigate. It doesn't replace professional legal, medical, financial, or mental-health advice, and its recommendations should stay tentative when important facts are missing.

Input: the user's stated goal or situation, plus their answer at each branching step, or any context they volunteer up front. Output: a sequence of short, list-formatted questions with 2-6-word options, followed at the leaf by a numbered list of 3-6 concrete, ordered, immediately actionable steps tailored to the answers given.

• No external tools - it's a pure conversational structuring technique applied through the model's own dialogue
• Presents choices as short lists, never prose, and steps as numbered lists starting at "1."

Anyone talking to a user who is overwhelmed by an open-ended decision or goal and needs it broken down into a manageable, answerable sequence rather than a wall of upfront options or advice.