It’s 9am – two hours into my work day and I have not decided when is best to meet with this person. It’s an important meeting. I want to be prepared and also fresh. I want to be off-the-cuff and grounded. My deciding is taking a lot of energy and time. I’m sweating.
Here are some tricks i’ve found to shortcut decisions and get to the thing right away.
Remember nothing is conclusive
sometimes i feel that i’m going to make a decision and that will be the end of it, so i better make a good one that i can live with. The truth is everything. keeps going. I keep growing. I keep having more conversations with the same people. I keep having the opportunity to pivot, apologize, trash plans, flake (though i don’t). My point is, i’m free in this decision. Most likely, everyone will survive it.
Difficult choices don’t matter
We were looking at two very different schools for Arlo to attend. They both had pros and cons and they both seemed good. We weren’t sure though because we’ve never picked a school for him or any kid. We did all the research. We knew a lot. It was paralyzing us. The answer to these difficult decisions is it doesn’t matter. Flip a coin.
If the decision is stay on the sidewalk or run blindfolded into the street, that’s an easy decision. That decision matters.
Just because the outcomes can be important, it doesn’t mean the decision is important.
Make the deadline now
Big fan of Parkinson’s Law here. If we give a decision a long gestation period, we’ll spend a lot of jellybeans on it. Skip it. We can decide to decide now and it’s done.
Choose no regrets
One thing that makes decisions heavy and bulky and awkward to lift is that there is the promise of regret. We can choose before making the decision that “this is the best i can do in this situation with what I know. I will repair later if i need to, but i will not regret it.”