Do you want to read an article that will take a whole 5 minutes? Easy decision. It's a no from me, dawg.
Why can it be so easy to make a decision like that, meanwhile you can spend hours choosing between between 1x100g Mars bar and 2x50g Mar bars. I'm clearly going to eat all 100g in less than 10 seconds, unwrapping the second bar as I chew.
How can we make better decisions? Here's a summary of an article you will never read.
DEFINE THE OUTCOME
Probs one for a bigger project - if you will. Maybe it's life? Articulate the goal. Then any question that pops up should be easy to answer. Does it help me get closer to that goal?
(IR)REVERSIBLE?
Lol, so it tells you to decide if an outcome will be easy to reverse or hard. But doesn't tell you what to do next. Obvs if you can reverse the decision easily, then just press CTRL-Z ASAP and no harm (or minimal harm) will be done.
Then if hard to reverse, like if you're planning a murder, you might like to spend more time thinking about what you should do. But really, how many irreversible decisions can you make day-to-day?
THE SAIL BOAT ANALOGY
There's some analogy that takes up more pixels than it's worth. I think it's saying something along the lines of you can probably make tweaks along the way. If the decision you made initially is starting to fall apart, or if you find areas of improvement along the way, there's no reason you have to stay on that same course you started on. I have no fucking idea why my analogy is more coherent.
To launch a cannonball through the hull, and sink of this analogy once and for all: How many decisions can't be tweaked? With tweaking in mind, what's the worst that could happen?
(Crap, that's the next bit.)
WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?
I'm going off-article now because it's a waste of time.
You're probably weighing up pros and cons because of the uncertainty, right? Even if you've done all the research known to the internet, and asked all the experts you know (your dad).
Let's say you need to take a risk. What's the worst that could happen if you went ahead with it? List out like 10 "worst things that could happen". They'll never happen. And if you realise your decision is accidentally bringing Hitler back to life, run to the helm AND SPIN THAT FUCKING WHEEL.
There's a Tim Ferriss around fear setting which speaks to this. If you care, here's his Ted Talk. (13 mins)
DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT
Still off-article. Do you even need to make a decision? (I have no idea why they didn't lead with this point. Jesus Christ.)
Does this decision even need to be made - full stop. Or made by me? If not, don't worry about it, or delegate to someone else. I realise that the "made by me" bit could read like it's me talking. I'm not going to do your shit. Read "me" as you, and not me being me.
I wondered if I should conclude this article. I think you know what the answer was.