Decision Workspace

What it does

Most "random picker" tools do one thing: pick one option at random from a list. The Decision Workspace is deliberately different — a single page that runs five different decision formats over the same list, because different decisions deserve different formats. A quick weeknight "what should I cook?" benefits from a fast Random Pick. Deciding which holiday destination among six benefits from a Tournament bracket. Giving each option a different probability needs the Weighted mode. Narrowing a longer list down to a shortlist needs Elimination. Group settings where everyone watches the picker often prefer the Wheel.

How to use it

1. Paste your options in the textarea — one per line. Up to 200 options supported; 2-20 is the sweet spot for most decisions.
2. Pick a mode from the tabs. The current list carries across modes, so you can try different approaches without re-typing.
3. Tap the big button. Each mode has its own run button + settings.
4. Re-roll or commit. If the result does not land, hit the button again or switch modes. Session history remembers your past picks.
5. Save the list if you will come back to it — a weekly meal rotation, a classroom roster, a team draft pool. Saved lists persist in your browser indefinitely.

The five modes, explained

🎯 Random Pick

The default. Uniform-probability random pick from the active list. Options: multi-pick (pick N options at once) and no-repeat (skip values already in session history). Best for: everyday single-decision situations where you just want an answer.

🎡 Wheel

Spinning-wheel animation that lands on one option. Visually satisfying and group-friendly — everyone watches the wheel, nobody can accuse the picker of bias. Caps at 24 wedges for readability; switch to Pick or Weighted for longer lists.

⚖️ Weighted

Each option gets an integer weight 1-10. The percentage shown next to each item is the exact probability on each pick. Use it when some options genuinely should get more airtime than others — a meal-planner that leans healthy with occasional treats, a cocktail picker that favours drinks you have ingredients for, a reward wheel where the big prize is actually rare.

🔪 Elimination

Starts with the full list, eliminates one random option per click, continues until N survivors remain. Set your target survivors (default 1). Good for: narrowing a long list down to a shortlist, deciding which of 10 features to cut, picking the last 3 from a 10-person draft.

🏆 Tournament

Single-elimination bracket. Shuffles the list into seeds, pairs them for round 1, winners advance. You can click to pick each match manually (slower but deliberate — forces you to think about each pair), or hit "Random-decide all matches" to run the whole tournament in one click. Odd pools get round-1 byes.

Practical examples

• Weeknight dinner — paste 10 regular dinners, use Random Pick, re-roll if the first suggestion does not land. Weighted mode for a healthy-skew: give salads weight 7, pizza weight 2.
• Classroom groups — paste 30 student names, use Elimination to leave the last pair standing for a presentation.
• Family holiday destination — paste 8 candidates, use Tournament to force head-to-head comparisons. The final match often surfaces the pick nobody expected.
• Secret Santa draft order — paste the names, Random Pick with multi-pick count = total, no-repeat on, get the full draft order at once.
• Giveaway winner — paste entrants, use Wheel for a shareable video.
• Choosing between features to cut — paste 10, Elimination until 3 remain.
• Picking a book from your to-read shelf — paste titles, Weighted so new buys get higher weight than library backlog.
• Deciding which chore to do — Random Pick with no-repeat on, so you work through the full chore list across the week.

Common use cases

Classroom + teachers. Student picking, group formation, reward selection, deciding which activity to run — all with visible randomness that students accept as fair. No student data leaves the browser (GDPR-safe for UK schools).

Families. Dinner, films, weekend activities, which parent does bath-time tonight. Externalise the decision so nobody has to advocate for a pick.

Product + design teams. Tournament mode for feature prioritisation forces head-to-head comparison. Elimination mode for "cut 3 of 10" sprint planning.

Groups + party games. Wheel mode for visible randomness. Random Pick multi-mode for forming teams.

Content creators + streamers. "Let the generator decide" videos work in any mode. Share-URL means viewers can run the same decision in their own session.

Why one page, not five separate tools

A single Decision Workspace that holds the same list across five modes is a materially better product than five separate pages that each need the list re-pasted. If you have ever tried to compare an outcome across tools and had to copy-paste your options twice, you have hit the problem this page fixes.

For single-tool use cases that specifically call for one format — a dedicated Wheel of Names for teachers, a Coin Flip for binary decisions, a Random Number Generator for a specific range — the 8 named generators and the full tool index remain available.