4 things that will make you a better decision maker

Make the decision when you’re in a good place.

Realising that the state of mind you’re in has an impact on your decision is vital. Make the right decisions in the right frames of mind!

Example: Don’t decide to start exercising on a new years party. It’s probably not a generous environment for that kind of commitment.

Don’t make 1000 decisions when 1 will do

I’ve devised a method for myself that I call the decision box. The basic premise is this:

• Choose a decision you want to commit to. Specify as much as you can.
• Choose for how long you’re going to commit.
• Lock the decision in, and don’t open the box until it’s due.
• Go execute, and don’t look back at the decision!

IFTTT — If this then that

An important part of decision making is to adjust to possible scenarios. Make sure that you know what to do in each possible case and outcome, and adjust the scenarios to the things you find important.

Realise that the decision you’ve made was the best one.

The decision you’ve made is the best one you could make from the information you had when you made it. Simple as that.

You cannot tell the quality of a decision from the outcome. While it might seem counterintuitive, the best decision-maker isn’t nescessarily the person with the most successes, but rather the one with the best process and judgement. The two can be far from the same, and especially over a small number of trials, it can be impossible to know who’s who.

— Howard Marks