Simplest decision making tool ever

I am amazed at how many decisions each of us have to make from sun up to sun down, day in and day out. Big, small, life changing! What do I drink today – tea or coffee? What do I wear today? Do I work out now or later? What do I eat? Where do I live? Who do I marry? and it goes on and on.

The more choices we have, the harder and more draining the decision.

Taking time and effort to work on decisions causes Decision fatigue. The more decisions you make in the course of your day, the more your willpower and decision making abilities wane and you eventually start making poor judgement choices out of this fatigue. Your mind gets tired after a prolonged decision making activity.

Let’s say, you have been making healthy choices all day but at the end of the day, you are faced with the decision of whether to eat cake for dessert or not. If you are decision fatigued, you would give in more easily.

This phenomenon has been studied extensively and is known to affect people making parole decisions, judges making sentencing decisions, teachers grading papers. Tired people make poor judgement calls.

Recently, I came across this simple trick that can be applied to most decisions in life – big or small.

“If it’s not a resounding ‘Yes’, it’s a ‘No'”

I started applying this litmus test to every decisions in my life and boy, was I blown away!

The basis of this principle is – We subconsciously make decisions in seconds, but our conscious mind keeps reasoning with these quick decisions trying to play devil’s advocate. Most of the time, we stick with the original quick decision we made. This simple trick forces us to stick with the quick decision and prevents us from going in too deep into the process. This speeds up the decision making, saves our faculties and energy for more important tasks and prevents decision fatigue.

I have found this can be applied to many areas of your life –

Career decisions – If you are not excited about a job, don’t take it. At the back of your mind you already know you are going to be miserable if you take it.

Relationships – Do I hang out with this person? If you have to even ask yourself, the answer is no.

Deciding on which event to go to, what to wear, which car to buy, you get the picture.

So, the next time you find yourself making elaborate pros and cons list to help you decide, use this tool and move on!