Moments of Indecision: A Mountain of Them

Has there ever been a moment in your life where you hesitated, and that brief moment cost you dearly? For some of you, I’m sure the answer is “yes”. But for most of you, I suspect the answer is “no”. I racked my brain for half an hour trying to think of single moments of (in)decision that had a huge impact on my life. I drew a blank. Let’s face it, those moments are rare for most of us. Unless your job puts you in high-impact moments on a regular basis, your decision-making process probably includes the luxury of time.

Which begs the question: Why do we value decisiveness so much? Wouldn’t it seem logical to conclude that the best decisions are made with patience and consideration?

Well, yes… theoretically. But there’s a fatal flaw in that logic: It fails to consider fundamental human nature. Our minds are brilliant strategists. They play tricks on us constantly. My brain has tricked me out of  exercise, work, and opportunity a thousand times over… and masking indecision as “careful forethought and consideration” is one of its best weapons.

It works like this: I have to do something that involves making a decision. My brain says, “Hmm, let’s think about that first. How about we contemplate it while making a nice cup of tea?” I think to myself, What a great idea, brain! So I make the tea, and as I’m doing so, my brain whips out another trick. This one’s called, “A Quick Bite to Eat,” and it gets me every time. I cook. I eat. I get a phone call or an email. I get sidetracked.

Next thing I know, it’s tomorrow afternoon. Same time. Same place. Same decision sitting in front of me. And this time, my brain’s tricks are even more effective, because they’ve been re-enforced by my behavior from the previous day. So in the long run, that single moment of indecision had a huge impact on me.

Conclusion: Individual moments of indecision aren’t inherently bad. But when they become part of a pattern of procrastination, then you have a problem.

And I have a solution. It’s simple, really. Any time your brain sees a fork in the road and doesn’t want to choose one path or the other, you need to help it along. You need to have a procedure for making that decision. Just a few small steps that you know can be accomplished easily enough, without hesitation.

Let’s use a simple example: You’re asked whether you want Chinese pizza or Italian sushi for dinner. They both sound delicious to you and you could go either way. You don’t know what to say. Maybe you want to shrug and say, “Whatever, whichever.” But instead, you know that any time you’re faced with a decision and all options are equally good, your procedure is to first ask yourself which one is healthier. If there’s a clear-cut answer, then you choose that one. If not, you choose the first option that was mentioned.

That’s a procedure. All you have to do to employ them yourself is keep your eye out for moments of indecision in your own life, and then build your own procedures to prevent them from happening. Problem solved. Productivity improved. End of story.

P.S. Your brain will attempt to trick you out of your procedure initially. Mine is very good about making me forget things it finds inconvenient. Just keep trying, don’t give up, and it will eventually give in.

This article was in response to AnotherGuy’s Writing Experiment #2.