Decision Making, part 2

In the previous post based on this series:

• change is scary and so are decisions
• Cartesian-ish system for binary decisions
• SMART target formulating method
• long-term planning, progress tracking and visualization
• cognitive biases related to this topic

Now that we could utilize Cartesian-ish system to help us with the two-option situations, let’s talk about what to do when we have three or more to choose from. First ask yourself why are you making the choice, that is what do you want to get at the end of a successful endeavor. Thus you generate meaningful to you criteria of success for each option and then fill up the following table in accordance with the degree of your preference — from lower number indicating less and higher ones indicating more interesting ones. Here we are advised to use part of the Fibonacci sequence (3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34) as this would provide wider range and consequently clearer choice to make.

The table to fill in

An example

After completing the table, you sum up the contents of each column and the one with the highest total is your optimal option. However there could be still a choice to be made between the two out of three as in my example. To resolve this you might use Cartesian system from the previous post, or try and toss a coin in a traditional sense or while the coin is still in the air you might find yourself thinking “please, not the Option 3” or “not ready-to-wear”, as in my example, and that should help to move forward.

Next the narrative moves to how many of us do indeed make decisions and plans, but never carry them out or turn away at some point. Most of us had had such forlorn targets and abandoned plans. However it does not necessarily mean that we are lazy or have failed, in any such instance. We often tend to think about it in black and white terms, where not achieving one’s grand purpose is equated with basically doing nothing and worse — being nothing. The thing here is that we forget that the person who started it all, and the person who progresses daily on the path, and the person who ends up committing to the end or choosing not to are all completely different persons, as we change minute to minute and day to day. It is possible and normal indeed even essential to be able to change one’s mind however many hours of one’s life were dedicated to any particular thing. It comes to the fore especially when one’s target seems to be huge and quite a way to get to. If you find yourself waving in continue/abandon dilemma, you must ask yourself (and answer honestly) if you are still interested and ready to commit. If not, well that’s OK, now you are free-er to pursue something else, for instance you might take viola classes, or wash your living room curtains, or leave the field, regroup and formulate another plan. If you are in though, here are several helpful hints on staying on track:

1. as stated previously, visualization is indispensable for long-term goals and big projects (Gantt’s chart or road-mapping) so plan ahead and write it all down to illustrate how (or at least approximately how) things go stage by stage and what progress is being made

2. order and method, mon ami:

• use reminders — nowadays it is easy to have some app or other reminding you of your daily tasks, and as we are what we do every day, being orderly is very important in achieving big goals
• create a routine, a ritual as it were, of getting into doing your thing — it might be a particular time of day, a pen you use, or a cup of coffee; it will serve as a signal to commence and help you keep up with your schedule
• if creating ritual does not work for you, you might consider scheduling your thing lets say as three blocks of half an hour per week that are strictly dedicated to that purpose as in you start and finish as you’ve planned (see more on the deep work concept in the summary of a wonderful book “Deep Work” by Cal Newport here and here, better still read the book itself)

3. find a companion, it sounds a cliche thing to say (as it is a cliche to some point) but sharing the road, both literal and metaphoric one, facilitates the burden for all included, in particular

• having a common or similar task in mind reminds us that we are not alone, there are people who can understand the struggle and it also adds a bit of healthy competition
• it can help to keep each other in check and every so often assess progress via calls, or daily/weekly meetups
• some degree of responsibility for each other

4. register the daily progress (I found bullet journal to be the easiest while still useful as it does not require notes per se, just a mark) as this will provide steady and decidedly deserved flow of affirmations

5. if you feel that you lack the energy and enthusiasm then take a break, step back and ask yourself why have you set onto this track, assess and re-assess whether or not you’re still on with it; you may have been tired, or being lazy, or this particular target is not what you want anymore.

Here we come to the part that might not be as obviously important and is often overlooked. What makes successful people plow on seemingly non-stop, building astounding projects and involving and inspiring hundreds and thousands of others? There are tons of self-help books on the lines of “Top 10 habits of very successful people” and probably the most amazing part in that is how well they sell, a wonder of marketing and our thoroughly exploited bottomless ability of self-deception, no doubt. In these videos we are given rather down-to-earth, sensible advice arbitrarily divided into two blocks — the body and the brain-related ones.

• Body:

— it would be nice and helpful to do something you truly enjoy, something that fills you with energy every day, for an even as short a time as say half an hour (it could be something on the healthy or overtly useful side, but it could also be video games as long as you are honest on whether it really does help you to recharge)

— it is essential to sleep, eat and drink however alluring and promising the prospect of a few sleepless study (or otherwise) nights might seem, and whichever fancy diet or body shape is en vogue it does not change the fact that food is fuel and brain burns it fast and would not function properly without it (and controlling weight for most of us, extremely short version, is simple math: calories in, calories out, want to lose some, then either eat less or move more and vise versa)

— at least 15 minutes of any exercise per day would not only provide a break but also help to recharge faster and more efficiently; I’d recommend mini-mobilization sets (you can read more on benefits of mobilization exercises and other health related topics taken on rationally with a due diligence and a healthy dose of humor from this wonderful site) but basically anything you could and would do regularly will help

— on top of daily moving routine they reasonably advice us to take on a sports related hobby or classes three to four times per week, say dancing or swimming or ping-pong; this will add to the daily regime benefits, to the ability of emptying your head and concentrate better, as well as the buildup of physical fitness that will support and foster better mental fitness and resilience

— talking about resilience and purposefulness, the last thing proposed in “body” section that is somewhere in-between is mindfulness practice in the simplest and probably best shape of it — just sitting down quietly for a ten-twenty minutes and try to turn your attention purposefully to your body, sort of listening to what it has to say, or to the outside, trying not to let your mind wander as paying attention in pro-active is a skill too so such daily exercises would help with it’s buildup (I found this part a bit dubious as there is a lot of hype and wishful thinking about mindfulness and similar practices, see this post by a neurologist and a masterful science communicator Dr. Novella for a clear take on the science, or lack thereof, of mindfulness meditation; what makes sense to me is that it should be beneficial for the brain to be quiet and even bored, which gets harder every day in contemporary world, thus getting more comfortable with nothingness and slowness should be of some use)

• Mind:

— proper and sufficient sleep, walks and contemplation all of which are not tied to any narrow, targeted purpose in particular but encourage dissipation of attention, absentmindedness to a certain degree (though do not engage in this on public roads)

— no gadgets day, no notifications, no messaging once a week or a month so that you’d be able to know and use your full attention as any of the three require a bit of it thus depleting the whole

— no talking day once a month or three — this I also find questionable, though I wonder whether I’d be able to take it and, more importantly, if I’d go through, would I ever shut up the day after

— any art-related hobby — no brainer here

Last but not least in this section, we are advised to treat our attention as a finite resource, as an example they compare it to an air balloon: let’s say that that all attention we have is in a balloon and the more little holes there are in the balloon, the sooner it becomes completely deflated. On the other hand the fewer there are, the longer it will stay up and maybe it will be able to move in one particular direction. Multitasking does not work and the more confident you are in your being able to the worse you objectively are, as soon as we have several things going on at once, all of them will suffer in quality or timing or both. You can find out a bit more about in a research summary of American Psychological Association. But here I must note that of course real life is rarely as generous as all that and even children often have to have multiple attention focuses but it is time to internalize this — no one is Julius Cesar, even he was not all that Cesar-y. So it is objectively beneficial to try and avoid multitasking as much as possible, though eliminating it is basically unattainable.

Up next: prioritization and presidents, making a conscious choice, and circles.