Decision Making 101: 6 Ways to Make Tough Decisions Faster

We all tend to shy away from making tough decisions. We overcomplicate things and our fear of choosing the wrong option, confines us in a purgatory where nothing gets done. This kind of procrastination hell can be paralyzing and can cause hindrances and obstacles in our work and personal life.

Indecisiveness can cause a drag on your time for days, months, or even years but making decisions in haste is not the goal here. The goal is to use effective methods and adhere to a decision-making process to make the right decisions quickly. Using the right methods will also make sure that you won’t be left behind because of decision fatigue. In this article, we’ll share some effective ways in which you can make tough decisions faster.

• Recognize the need to make a decision

Remember that all good decision-makers first recognize the need to make a decision for a problem before it turns into a full-blown crisis. They also don’t let their gut feelings prolong the decision-making process. The way you can maximize the effect of this method is by asking the right questions. Don’t jump to hasty conclusions. Focus on questions that can help you make the right decisions

• Get relevant information from different sources

You can’t make the right decisions without gathering the relevant information about the problem. For instance, when you are choosing a restaurant for dinner, you ask the people around you for suggestions, you use a high-speed internet connection like Smithville Communications to go online and look for reviews of different restaurants, you even check out the social media accounts of the restaurants. After gathering all this information you choose the perfect restaurant for your next dinner date.  

This process can be applied to all the difficult decisions that you need to make. Gather all the information necessary from diverse sources, but make sure the said sources that you are approaching are well-informed and accurate in order to avoid wasting time.

• Fall back on your values

Having a clear set of values that you abide by at all costs can make decision-making easier. For instance, the standard level of debt you are willing to carry or a certain amount of time that you want to spend with your family. When it comes to making a decision about taking a new job that demands long commutes, work travel, or making an expensive purchase, you’ll immediately fall back to your values and recognize if choosing a certain course of action compromises your values somehow.

• Meditate

Most decision-making coaches recommend uninterrupted meditation to seek guidance from your inner wisdom. Just sit in an empty space and breathe in and out and use that as an anchor to remain in the present moment. Once you are done, you can write down what guidance you received during that time. Once you come to a conclusion, ask yourself if the decision you came up with will benefit you and the others around you.  

• Recognize your body’s reactions

When you make a tough decision it is important that you empty out your mind and relax so that you can start with a clear and clean slate. Give yourself some time to get into that state, and once you are there, think about the decisions that you need to make. Start to think about the pros and cons and the scenarios. We tend to react physically to the information we hear about. Try to base your decisions on what feels right to your body. Your body sometimes has a way of knowing what your mind can’t catch up to.

• Devise a decision making process criteria

Devise a decision-making process criteria to analyze the multiple methods of how you want to attain your desired outcomes. Create a criterion before diving into the options available. Keep in mind that our intuition plays a great role in our decision-making process by pushing for results that sit well with our gut. You will most likely end up making a wrong decision if you don’t make the relevant criteria before you examine your options.

Wrapping Up

Life is full of tough calls and hard decisions, but these instances don’t have to be a massive drain on your time. The key is to lay a strong foundation and go from there, you can use the six tactics mentioned above to make decisions faster.  If you do so, you’ll end up spending less time fussing over your decisions and won’t make wrong choices that you’ll later regret.