

Ask HN: How to hack or get better at decision making? - quietthrow

I consider myself a thinker and find myself easily getting paralyzed by the choices that emerge when you think or analyze a problem. The good thing is I can see many possibilities and the bad thing is because of all the possibilities I find is very hard arrive at a decision. Would love to hear experience from people who are facing or have in the past faced this problem and how they deal&#x2F;dealt with it.
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calcsam
Psychological research suggests

(1) narrowing down to a series of binary choices:

Japanese or American brand? Japanese

Honda or Toyota? Honda.

SUV or car? Car

Civic or Accord? Accord

Used or new? New

Red or black? Red

(2) Decisions are emotional, not just logical. Look at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotions_in_decision-
making](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotions_in_decision-making).

A good example of this is people who experience damage to their prefrontal
cortex. Not only do they experience changes to their emotions, they are unable
to make decisions, deliberating extremely long for the simplest things.

[http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/125/3/624.abstract](http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/125/3/624.abstract)

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nostrademons
Easiest way is to remember that not making a decision is itself a decision,
it's just one done with _zero_ analysis, _zero_ conscious thought, and usually
_zero_ positive impact on the world. In other words, most of the time it's the
worst possible decision you can make. So do your research and just pick a
course, even if it's not perfect, because you'll never have perfect
information. You don't have to; you just have to be better than everyone
else's information.

