Managing your decisions is a tough task. This article discusses some habitual approaches to making better decisions. Some of these habits include imagining what might happen before you take action, identifying the main problem, and using heuristics to make decisions. We’ll also cover a few common pitfalls and the best way to avoid them. Follow these habits and you’ll be well on your way to being a better decision maker.
Making tough decisions
There are some habits that you can follow to make better decisions when faced with difficult situations. In addition to challenging your assumptions, a good decision maker looks for information from multiple sources and avoids cognitive dissonance. This will help you make a more effective decision and make the best use of your company’s time and resources. It’s also beneficial to have a clear goal for decision-making and be able to track progress.
Identifying the main problem
One key to improving your decision-making skills is reflection. People who make good decisions use a process of making decisions, analyzing them and then executing them. The main goal of reflection is to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and then improve your decision-making abilities. This process can also be used to make better decisions for your own life, such as which restaurant to go to for dinner. Here are seven steps to follow:
Identifying heuristics
If you’re a decision-maker, identifying heuristics can help you avoid cognitive biases and wrong judgments. These biases are caused by common heuristics that make us behave in certain ways. For example, we might attribute a misstep to a lack of care or jostling. However, the fact is that these biases aren’t universal. In fact, according to Pachur et al. (2008), only half of all people use recognition in its strictest sense.
Talking to yourself as an experienced friend
You have likely heard the phrase “talking to yourself as if you were talking to a trusted friend.” This is a powerful technique that can help you make better decisions by removing emotion from the decision-making process. When you’re facing an important decision, label your emotions so that you can consider them more objectively. For example, if you’re debating whether to make an investment or quit your job, you might ask yourself, “what would I say to my friend?” In other words, talk to yourself as if you were talking to a trusted friend.
Conclusion:
Taking the time to evaluate a situation before making a decision can be very beneficial. Most decisions involve some degree of risk. Understanding the risks and benefits of a decision is crucial. Although we cannot always know what the consequences will be 100 percent of the time, we can do Impact Analysis to examine the consequences of a specific choice. Another factor to consider is feasibility. The alternative you choose should be better than the status quo.
