Deathbed Test
Use future regret to resolve conflicts between achievement and what matters most
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 96%
The Deathbed Test asks what you would later wish you had done more of, attempted, or attended. Kilgore credits a former Saks Fifth Avenue CEO with using the question to decide that a child's important ceremony outweighed a conversion-rate concern. The mechanism is temporal distance: move beyond the urgency of today's metric, imagine reviewing the choice at the end of life, and compare the likely regret attached to each omission. Events that cannot be replayed may then outrank reversible business work. Kilgore and Bartlett also discuss a smaller, present-tense version: choices about how to treat someone shape how you feel about yourself immediately. The framework is a values check, not a factual prediction of future emotion.
Origin
Kilgore recalls Tina Johnson, whom she identifies as a former Saks Fifth Avenue CEO, saying she used the Deathbed Test when deciding whether to miss important events involving her children.
Core principles
- 01Some missed moments cannot be recreated
- 02Future regret can clarify present priorities
- 03Personal meaning can outweigh a business metric
- 04The test should guide concrete choices now
How to run it
- 1
Define the tradeoff
State the two competing uses of time or attention. Identify what would be gained and missed under each option.
Watch out Do not reduce the choice to whichever demand feels most urgent today.
- 2
Move to the future
Imagine looking back on the decision near the end of life. Ask which omission you would be more likely to regret.
Pro tip Use a specific future memory rather than a vague image of success.
- 3
Test reversibility
Determine whether the work can be rescheduled and whether the personal moment can ever occur in the same form again. Give unrepeatable events appropriate weight.
Watch out Not every event is automatically more important than every obligation.
- 4
Choose against deeper regret
Select the option that better fits the life and relationships you want to remember. Accept the smaller short-term cost consciously.
- 5
Apply the micro version
For everyday interactions, ask whether you will be comfortable living with how you behaved. Adjust while the moment is still happening.
Pro tip Use this as a brief conduct check, not constant self-judgment.
In the wild
Kilgore recalls the test being used to compare attending a child's grade-five graduation with a business conversion-rate concern. The ceremony was treated as the event whose loss would matter more in hindsight.
→ The future-regret lens placed the unrepeatable family event above the reversible metric.
Common mistakes
Using urgency as importance
A live business metric can feel pressing while still mattering less in long-term hindsight.
Turning every choice existential
The test is most useful for meaningful tradeoffs, not ordinary reversible decisions.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for consequential choices involving family, relationships, experiences, and career tradeoffs.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for routine low-stakes choices where imagined mortality would add drama rather than clarity.
From the transcript
“what are you going to on your deathbed think back and go God I wish I would have done more of that”
“you will kick yourself if you miss the grade five graduation”
From the episode
How I Built 5 Multi-Million Dollar Companies: Marcia Kilgore