How to Make Tough Decisions: 3 Ways for All Seasons

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Making decisions is always difficult, regardless of whether they relate to the food in the restaurant or the direction of the company's development. Here are three methods to help you make any decisions faster and easier in household, personal and work matters.

You sit in a restaurant and leaf through the menu. All dishes look so delicious that you don't know what to choose. Maybe order them all?

You have probably faced such problems. If not in food, then in something else. We spend a tremendous amount of time and energy deciding between equally attractive options. But, on the other hand, the options cannot be the same, because each of them is attractive in its own way.

Once you have made a choice, you are faced with a new choice. This is an endless series of important decisions that cause fatigue and fear of the wrong choice. These three methods will help you make better decisions at all levels of life.

Build habits to avoid household decisions

The point is that if you get into the habit of eating salad for lunch, then you won't have to decide what to order in the cafe.

By developing habits that relate to such simple household chores, you save energy for making more complex and important decisions. In addition, if you get used to having breakfast with salad, you do not have to waste willpower not to eat something fatty and fried instead of salad.

But this applies to predictable cases. What about unexpected solutions?

"If - then": a method for unpredictable decisions

For example, someone is constantly interrupting your speech and you are not sure how to react to it or whether to react at all. According to the "if-then" method, you decide: if he interrupts you two more times, then you will make him a polite remark, and if this does not work, then in a more rude form.

These two methods help us make most of the decisions we face every day. But when it comes to strategic planning issues, such as how to respond to the threat of competitors, which products to invest more in, where to cut the budget, they are powerless.

These are decisions that can be delayed by a week, a month or even a year, hindering the development of the company. They cannot be dealt with by habit, and the if-then method will not work here either. As a rule, there is no clear and correct answer to such questions.

Often, the management team delays the adoption of such decisions. He collects information, weighs all the pros and cons, continues to wait and observe the situation, hoping that something will appear that will indicate the right decision.

And assuming there is no right answer, would that help you make a decision quickly?

Imagine you have a decision to make in the next 15 minutes. Not tomorrow, not next week, when you collect enough information, and not in a month, when you talk to everyone who is involved in the problem.

You have a quarter of an hour to make a decision. Take action.

This is the third way to help you make difficult decisions regarding long-term planning.

Use the time

If you have researched a problem and realized that the options for solving it are equally attractive, assume that there is no right answer, set yourself a time limit and just choose any option. If testing one of the solutions requires a minimum investment, choose it and test it. But if this is not possible, then choose any and as soon as possible: the time that you spend on useless thinking can be used in the best way.

Of course, you can disagree: "If I wait, the right answer may appear."Maybe, but, first of all, you are wasting precious time waiting for the situation to be cleared up. Second, waiting makes you procrastinate and postpone other decisions related to it, reduces productivity and slows down the development of the company.

Just make a decision and move on.

Try it now. If you have a question that you've been putting off for a long time, give yourself three minutes and do it. If you have too many of these, write a list and set a time for each decision.

You will see that with each decision you make, you will feel a little better, your anxiety will decrease, you will feel that you are moving forward.

So, you choose a light salad. Was it the right choice? Who knows … At least you have eaten, not sitting hungry over a menu of dishes.