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Good decisions
To make good decisions, we generally need to do the following:
- Identify the decision: recognizing the need to make a decision, and identifying what that decision involves.
- Set our goals: establishing what we want to achieve with the decision and how important each goal is to us.
- Gather data: collecting the necessary information to make a decision.
- Identify options: researching the options that are available to us.
- Assess the options: identifying the pros and cons of the available options.
- Select the preferred option: Rating options based on their pros and cons, and choosing the one that’s best for us.
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MORE IDEAS ON THIS
Get better at making decisions
- Be aware of the cognitive biases that might influence your thinking, and then use debiasing techniques to reduce those biases (imagining you're you’re giving advice to a friend, for example)
- You can rely on your intuition when it’s appropriate to do so in quick decision making, but...
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Why people struggle with decision making
- The main reason why decision-making is hard is that every decision makes us go through a process that is most times difficult and complex, and having difficulties with any part of it can hinder the whole process.
- The emotional difficulty that we face when w...
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Types of indecisiveness
- Exploratory indecisiveness: a long and drawn-out struggle to make decisions, even after all the options have been explored thoroughly.
- Impetuous indecisiveness: quickly making decisions but constantly also changing one’s mind about them.
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Factors that make it harder to decide
- Complexity: the more complex a certain decision is, the harder it is to choose. A common reason for added complexity in decision-making is that there is a large number of options to choose from.
- Uncertainty: the more uncertainty is involved with a ...
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Emotions and decision-making
Our emotions can makes us act in an irrational way and make bad decisions. But don't ignore your emotions entirely; they are not necessarily the cause of our bad decisions.
You should take your emotions into account in a rational way, without giving them the power to prevent you from condu...
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“The existence of multiple alternatives makes it easy for us to imagine alternatives that don’t exist—alternatives that combine the attractive features of the ones that do exist. And to the extent that we engage our imaginations in this way, we will be even less satisfied with the alternative...
BARRY SCHWARTZ
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Some people are naturally more indecisive than others
There are a few personality traits that are found in indecisive individuals:
- Neuroticism: the tendency to be prone to negative emotions and psychological stress is strongly correlated with indecisiveness, as is perfectionism.
- Indecisiveness is associated with the tendency to...
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The role of intuition in decision-making
When making decisions, using your intuition is not essentially good or bad; this depends on multiple factors, such as the circumstances at hand and the way you use your intuition.
While you should be willing to use your intuition where necessary, you should assess the situation first, ...
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Related collections
Other curated ideas on this topic:
Decision-Making
- Evaluate the pros and cons of the career options you have been researching.
- Since the landscape of the world-of-work is constantly changing, it may be unrealistic to aim for decisions based on absolute certainty.
- Self-awareness, occupational awareness,...
Integrative Thinking and Making Decisions
Traditional decision making often follows these stages to get to a single choice or answer:
- We consider a number of choices, discussing the pros and cons of each choice or option.
- If available, we’ll present data for each option.
- We vote for our fav...
5 levels of delegation
- Level 1: Do as I say - At this level, you give instructions. You already know exactly what you want and require the other person to stick to your specifications.
- Level 2: Research and report back - When you need information to make...
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