Learn more about problemsolving with this collection
How to challenge assumptions
How to generate new ideas
How to break out of traditional thinking patterns
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 we need to pick only one of multiple possible options means that we have to forego several alternatives that we may find appealing. This is associated with the concept of FOMO (the fear of missing out).
- The decision-making process can be very demanding, from a cognitive and an emotional perspective. Also, the act of making a decision is tiring in itself, since it depletes the cognitive resources.
- Being tired and sleep-deprived can make it more difficult for us to process information, and more likely for us to suffer from various cognitive biases that get in the way of making good decisions.
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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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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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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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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...
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Related collections
More like this
Why Is Falsification Important?
Adopting an attitude of falsifiability does a few key things:
- it helps us to avoid many cognitive biases that can hinder intellectual growth and good decision making
- it makes us clearer thinkers by forcing us to be specific about what we think ...
Decision making and biases
Experts have known for a while that our decision-making processes are flawed — and often in predictable ways. We easily succumb to all sorts of biases that prevent us from making smart choices.
Reason and emotions in decision making
Decision making is a complex process, that engages both reasoning and emotions. Even the most emotional person uses rational thought when deciding, and even the most rational person is affected by emotions when making decisions.
Still, we often tend to highlight the negati...
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