From https://hbr.org/2015/11/3-timeless-rules-for-making-tough-decisions

I perused the restaurant menu for several minutes, struggling with indecision, each item tempting me in a different way.

We spend an inordinate amount of time, and a tremendous amount of energy, making choices between equally attractive options in everyday situations. The problem is, that while they may be equally attractive, they are also differently attractive, with tradeoffs that require compromise. Even when deciding between kale salad (healthy and light), salmon (a heavier protein), and ravioli (tasty, but high carbs).

The first method is to use habits as a way to reduce routine decision fatigue. The idea is that if you build a habit —for example: always eat salad for lunch — then you avoid the decision entirely and you can save your decision-making energy for other things.

That works for predictable and routine decisions. But what about unpredictable ones?

The second method is to use if/then thinking to routinize unpredictable choices. For example, let’s say someone constantly interrupts me and I’m not sure how to respond. My if/then rule might be: if the person interrupts me two times in a conversation, then I will say something.

These two techniques — habits and if/then — can help streamline many typical, routine choices we face in our lives.

What we haven’t solved for are the larger more strategic decisions that aren’t habitual and can’t be predicted.

Most importantly, they are decisions for which there is no clear, right answer.

Leadership teams tend to perseverate over this sort of decision for a long time, collecting more data, excessively weighing pros and cons, soliciting additional opinions, delaying while they wait — hope — for a clear answer to emerge.

But what if we could use the fact that there is no clear answer to make a faster decision?

“It’s 3:15pm,” He said. “We need to make a decision in the next 15 minutes.”

“Hold on,” the CFO responded, “this is a complex decision. Maybe we should continue the conversation at dinner, or at the next offsite.”

“No,” The CEO was resolute, “We will make a decision within the next 15 minutes.”

And you know what? We did.

Which is how I came to my third decision-making method: use a timer.

If the issues on the table have been reasonably vetted, the choices are equally attractive, and there is still no clear answer, then admit that there is no clearly identifiable right way to go and just decide.

It helps if you can make the decision smaller, with minimal investment, to test it. But if you can’t, then just make the decision. The time you save by not deliberating pointlessly will pay massive dividends in productivity.


Hold on, you may protest. If I do spend more time on it, an answer will emerge. Sure, maybe. But, 1) you’ve wasted precious time waiting for that clarity and, 2) the clarity of that one decision seduces you to linger, counter-productively and in fruitless hope for clarity, on too many other decisions.

Just make a decision and move forward.
If you are overwhelmed with too many decisions, take a piece of paper and write a list of the decisions. Give yourself a set amount of time and then, one by one, make the best decision you can make in the moment. Making the decision — any decision — will reduce your anxiety and let you move forward. The best antidote to feeling overwhelmed is forward momentum.

As for my lunch, I ordered the kale salad. Was it the best choice? I don’t know. But at least I’m not still sitting around trying to order.

How we Decide

From "How we Decide" - Jonah Lehrer

• 
  
• Loss Aversion : In human decision making, losses loom larger than gains. The pain of a loss was approximately twice as potent as the pleasure generated by a gain.


• Loss aversion is part of a larger psychological phenomenon known as negativity bias, which means that for the human mind, bad is stronger than good. This is why in marital interactions, it generally takes at least five kind comments to compensate for one critical comment. The only way to avoid loss aversion is to know about it.


• How do we regulate our emotions? The answer is surprisingly simple: by thinking about them. An individual can try to figure out why he's feeling the what he's feeling.
• 
  
• Could eat one marshmallow right away or if the child was willing to wait a few minutes, could eat two. Practically all decided to wait. The marshmallow was a test of self-control. The emotional brain is always tempted by rewarding stimuli. The ability to wait was because patient children were better at using reason to control their impulses. They covered their eyes, managed to shift attention somewhere else, looked for something else to play with and not fixate on the sweet treat. This skill also allowed these kids to spend more time on their homework.
• 
  
• People with frontal-lobe ;lesions can never solve puzzles. When problem-solving, the first brain areas activated were those involved in executive control, such as the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex. The brain was banishing irrelevant thoughts so that the task-dependent cells could properly focus. Insight required a clean slate. Most of the possibilities your brain comes up with aren't going to be useful, but then when the right answer suddenly appeared, there was an immediate realization that the puzzle had been solved. This act of recognition is performed by the prefrontal cortex.


• If the mind were infinitely powerful, information would be an unqualified good. The biological reality of the brain however is that it is severely bounded. the conscious brain can only handle about seven pieces of data at any one moment.


• Too much data can intimidate the prefrontal cortex, that's when bad decisions are made.


• Experiment with some people given a 7-digit number and others given a 3-digit number, they were offered a choice between a chocolate cake slice or a fruit bowl. The 7-digit people normally chose the cake.


• Distracting the brain with a challenging memory task made a person much more likely to give in to temptation and choose cake. the subjects' self-control was overwhelmed by the extra 5 digits.


• The effort required to memorize seven digits drew cognitive resources away from that part of the brain that normally controls emotional urges.


• A mind trying to remember lots of information is less able to exert control over its impulses.


• A slight drop is blood sugar levels can also inhibit self-control, since the frontal lobes require lots of energy in order to function.


• Students were made to watch a mentally taxing movie while ignoring the rolling text at the bottom of the screen and then some were then offered lemonade with sugar, others were given lemonade with Splenda. After giving time for the glucose to enter the brain (abt 15 mins), the students were asked to pick apartments. The students without the sugar relied on intuition and instinct rather than reason since their rational brains were just too exhausted to think.


• This research can also help explain why we are cranky when we're hungry and tired: The brain is less able to suppress the negative emotions sparked by small annoyances.


• A bad mood is really just a rundown prefrontal cortex.


• The brain relies on mental accounting since it has such limited processing abilities. These thinking problems come from the fact that we have slow, erratic CPU and the fact that we're busy. Since the prefrontal cortex can only handle seven things at the same time, its constantly trying to chunk stuff together to make the complexity of life more manageable. Instead of thinking about each M&M, we think in scoops.


• The fragility of the prefrontal cortex means that we all have to be extremely vigilant about not paying attention to unnecessary information.


• We live in a culture that's awash in information. The human brain was not designed to deal with such a surfeit of data. Being exposed to extra news was distracting.
• .
• On complicated decisions, its probably a mistake to reflect on all the options, as this inundates the prefrontal cortex with too much data.
• Use your conscious mind to acquire all the information you need for making a decision. But don't try to analyze the information with your conscious mind. Instead, go on holiday while your unconscious mind digests it. Whatever your intuition then tells you is almost certainly going to be the best choice.
• Anyone who is making difficult decisions can benefit from a more emotional thought process.As long as someone has sufficient experience in that domain-he's taken the time to train his dopamine neurons- then he shouldn't spend too much time consciously contemplating the alternatives.
• It is the easy problems that are best suited to the conscious brain. These simple decisions won't overwhelm the prefrontal cortex.
• Complex problems, on the other hand, require the processing of the emotional brain, the supercomputer of the mind. This doesn't mean you can just blink and know what to do- even the unconscious takes a little time to process the information-but it does suggest that there's a better way to make difficult decisions.

Strawberry jam: 

Consumers first picked their favorite Jam based on taste. Matched Consumer Reports reviews. 

Then I asked to explain why they prefer a particular Jam, which forced them to analyze their first impressions. All this extra analysis warped their jam judgment. 

Thinking Too much about the strawberry jam causes us to focus on all sorts of variables that actually don't matter. Instead of just listening to instinctive preferences - Best jam is associated with the most positive feelings- our rational brain search for reasons to prefer one jam over another. 

Repeated that. And with posters. 

5 posters- if subjects were divided into two groups. First was the non thinking group - instructed to Simply rate each poster on a scale from 1 to 10. The second group were given question that ask them why they liked or disliked each of the five posters. 

The members of the non-thinking group were much more satisfied with their choice of posters. SelfAnalysis resulted in less self-awareness. 

Fragility of the prefrontal cortex means that we all have to be extremely Vigilant about not paying attention to unnecessary information. When the prefrontal cortex is overwhelmed a person can no longer make sense of the situation. correlation is confused with causation. 

People in good mood are significantly better at solving hard problems that require insight then people who are cranky and depressed. The prefrontal cortex isn't preoccupied with managing emotional life, which means they're free to solve the problem at hand. 

Reason and feeling are both essential tools., each is best suited for specific tasks. Simple problems require reason on the other hand for important decisions about complex items use your emotions. It might sound ridiculous, make scientific sense: think Less about those items that you care a lot about. Don't be afraid to let your emotions choose. 

How can anyone identify the simple problems that are best suited for reason? Can the decision be accurately summarized in numerical terms? 

2 Simple tricks to help ensure that you never let certainty interfere with your judgment: First always entertain competing hypotheses. When you force yourself to interpret the facts through a different but uncomfortable lens you often discover your beliefs rest on a rather shaky Foundation. Be your own devil advocate. 

Second, continually remind yourself of what you don't know. Unknown unknowns.