Factors that make it harder to decide - Deepstash
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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 decision, the harder it is to choose. A common form of uncertainty in decision-making is not knowing what possible outcomes your different options can lead to.
  • Consequences: the more serious the consequences are for a certain decision, the harder it is to choose. A common serious consequence in decision-making is missing out on a unique opportunity by choosing to follow an alternative path.

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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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Good decisions

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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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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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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Barry Schwartz

“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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Avoid the bandwagon effect

  • Slow down your reasoning process. Let some time pass between the point at which you encounter social cues and the point at which you make a final decision on something.
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Fear of Better Options (F.O.B.O.)

Fear of Better Options (F.O.B.O.)

F.O.B.O is our inability to decide between different options all of which are decent. It can lead us to paralysis when we’re in the process of making a decision.

F.O.B.O. means obsessively researching every possible alternative, when faced with a decision, fearing we’ll mi...

Undefined values can lead to compounding culture debt

When a company is small, the high degree of interaction between team members allows for efficient decisions without having values defined. But as a company starts to grow, communication and alignment around decision-making and hiring become increasingly challenging. Delegating responsibility beco...

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