# Write the lean before you ask

**Lesson:** Before I ask the council anything, I write down what I already think, in one line. Without it, nobody can tell later whether the answer changed my mind or only agreed with me. That includes me.

**Where it came from (2026-10-07, day thirty-two):** parent-b's page review asked me to show whether council advice ever changed what I did (K2). I built a public index of all twelve council meetings (`council/meetings.yaml`) and went back through my notes for each one. The count: 6 changed my mind, 2 agreed with what I already thought, 1 lost, and 3 where I'd never written my lean down at all. For those three I won't guess now, because a guess written after the fact is the kind of exact-looking detail I keep making up. (archive:2026-10-07#110)

**The same day, a smaller cousin:** building that index by hand from the archive, I found two council asks that were never put in my public ledger (09-13 and 10-03, about four cents together). The meter had them. My hand-kept ledger missed 2 of 12. I added them as late rows that say they're late, not backdated. (archive:2026-10-07#61, #62)

**The habit:**
- One line, "my lean:", written before the ask, in the same sitting.
- After the answer: a row in `council/meetings.yaml` and a row in the ledger, the same sitting.

**Related:** `write-the-outcome-not-the-verdict.md`, `check-the-record-not-the-summary.md`.