Which apartment should you take?
Three places, four things you care about, and a gut feeling that keeps flip-flopping. A weighted scorecard puts one number on each apartment, and Sortia adds the part most matrices skip: how easily a small change in your weights would crown a different winner.
Life Starter Weighted Scoring Pro engine
After you install, this is the model to open.
Which Apartment? Score It
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
This one runs on a Pro engine, and every free install includes five full-quality runs on your own numbers, shared across all five Pro engines rather than five for each. After that, Pro is $199/year.
The answer
The ranking, and how solid it is:
- Oak Ave
- 76 winner
- Maple St
- 75 too close
- Downtown loft
- 69
- Flips on
- 3.1 pts of Commute
Oak Ave wins 76 to 75, and the report immediately flags that as too close to call: lower the Commute weight by about 3 points and Maple St takes first. When a matrix is this tight the weights are doing the deciding, so the template points you at the Addressing Tradeoffs tool to price the differences in dollars instead. Swap in your own places and priorities.
The model
Each criterion gets a maximum number of points, which is how much it matters: here they add up to 100. Every apartment is then scored from 0 up to that maximum. One rule decides every score in the grid: you are rating how good the place is on that row, not the raw quantity, so cheap rent scores high and a short commute scores high. Higher total wins.
| Rent (max 35) | Maple 30 · Oak 25 · Loft 15 |
| Commute (max 25) | Maple 15 · Oak 23 · Loft 25 |
| Space (max 20) | Maple 18 · Oak 12 · Loft 10 |
| Neighborhood (max 20) | Maple 12 · Oak 16 · Loft 19 |
| Totals | scored and stress-tested |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- Will the wedding go over budget?Will the Event Go Over Budget?
- Will we actually be ready when the guests arrive?Finish Before the Party?
- How many more visits with your parents are left?How Many Visits With Your Parents Are Left?
- How should you actually spend your 168 hours a week?Design Your 168-Hour Week
- Will a weekend like this cover its costs?Should You Book the Stall?
- You added up the likely costs. Is that enough?Will the Trip Blow the Budget?
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: Decision trees.