Decision Making, part 4

In previous post

• priorities: internal and momentary
• internal priorities: acknowledged and unacknowledged
• Eisenhower matrix
• circle of influence and the circle of concern

In this final part of my grand epic we’d be looking into the rest of these videos’ contents (decision making for adolescents in Russian).

Making decisions is scary as however unpleasant the status quo is, it is at least a known kind of unpleasant in a familiar set of circumstances, whereas any decision made to the change is to a certain degree a leap into abyss of unknown which is frightening and rightfully so. The unknownness of it all naturally comes either from the lack of knowledge and/or experience with the matter at hand, or from absence of positive experience. So what can one do about it?

1. one can and should exercise and condition the decision-making “muscle” — it is impossible to remove the fear completely, the more repetitions you do, the easier it gets; familiarizing yourself with the experience and the feel of it will gradually diminish the stress it puts you in. Start making calm, well-weighed, deliberate decisions in daily, small occurrences and proceed from there to bigger targets.
2. create positive experiences — because again, fear does not go anywhere, it is a part of normal life, as is stress (fearless ancient would-be-ancestors never were, because if one tries to separate pareidolia from a real lions’ shape in high grass of prehistoric savanna, one runs a significant risk of being eaten for his troubles). Thus apart from familiarizing oneself with the process, creating positive outcomes to uncertain situations is a good idea.

You can

• gather more information on the subject: utilize one of the miracles of civilization — ability to store and share information, one does not have to necessarily gather experience first hand these days
• analyze other people’s positive experience on it: the above applies here too, plus having seen precedents removes the mysterious veil of “tis never done”
• try imagining the worst case scenario, the one that is though possible is rather unlikely, being THE WORST one — just looking at it will bring you the whole panoply of emotions that would have occurred in such an outcome, while at the same time bringing vague and nebulous fears to a very scary but narrow and conceivable one
• move by little increments as it will reduce the probability of a ruinous mistake

Of note here is that most of the time when we are afraid, we are afraid of making a mistake. But what is a mistake? It is when our fabulous preconceived assumptions over something clash with the real and rather different outcome. However consider for instance a mistake that happened in 1928 when one of the Petri dishes in Fleming’s lab were left uncovered or uncleaned as a result of an overlook on part of one of the staff and a colony of mold had grown on it. What was remarkable is that the same dish was previously inhabited by bacteria (put there on purpose for research) which were thoroughly destroyed in and around the area of the invading mold. Since then the trajectory of medicine and healthcare changed for the better. Another accidental not as much a discovery, but more of an invention is the story how we got Coca-Cola (for better or worse), as the biochemist tried to find a painkiller to substitute morphine he’d got addicted to as a result of a wound sustained during American Civil War. It is curious that in the video I am writing about morphine addiction was replaced with migraines, not sure by intention or by mistake. Nevertheless, Coke had had it’s immense impact on us all as well, and not in the way originally intended.

Coming back to our main topic though — we are advised that there are no mistakes per se, but there are different experiences one gathers, as well as there being no right decisions, just decisions that lead to certain experiences with which we then work. So no matter how scary it is, make decisions, gain experience and learn to deal with consequences. One can learn to see fear, acknowledge it, understand where it comes from, and go through it with subsequent coming to a decision and acting on it (sounds similar to Dune’s “Litany Against Fear”).

Now what if the particular situation you’re in can be described as “it’s certain that everything is uncertain”, you feel as if you know nothing whatsoever with regards to it and the ever present anxiety and fear start to mount. It is an undesirable setup to find oneself in for sure, however the absolute uncertainty about it makes it rather uncommon and unlikely. The absoluteness of it probably is of emotional genesis, not the part of objective reality. It invokes the known unknown when one knows something, maybe just enough to be aware of the issue and personal lack of insight on it vs. the unknown unknown when one has no clue that they lack a clue. So with one piece of information the brain tries to build a structure around it, to give it a context and with it give more information based on or extrapolated from the received earlier. In fact, our brains engage it in this puzzle compilation all the time as the amount of environmental impulses to reach various receptors varies enormously and it is often of low quality, so brain has to elaborate on some points and erase others from existence. This is why we see figures in the clouds, hear non-existent voices in the sound of running water, all sort of pareidolias (or pareidolii?). Basically the brain is trying it’s best at guessing and sometimes it guesses wrong (this also works for emotional intelligence where some folks “feel” others better, read more on this topic in this post by Lisa Feldman Barett).

To build whole-er picture the brain draws from previous personal experience, assumptions about the future, and of person’s cultural background and day-to-day reality. In this picture some things are true, some other things you’ve seen someone mention on some subreddit years ago speaking of a fictional character, and even further things that are straight up pulled out of whole cloth. Therefore it is important to be able to draw lines between fictional and real components of this chef-d’oevre of one’s brain. You can do this by asking yourself

— what else do I know about this and in which parts I am certain

— how do I know this or where did I get this information (especially, when it seems more intimidating and repulsive, as oppose to positively exciting and encouraging ideas that tend to encourage more exploration and movement in their direction)

— where can I gain more insight on this topic

One might not have sufficient information, but only with one additional stipulation — one might not have it now. There are ways to find out more. It is almost inconceivable in this day and age that there might not be some extra information around on almost any topic, especially when we’re not talking of obscure branches of academic research or similar things. Being unable to find out more is indeed a weak excuse.

Next let’s assume that one has gathered much needed information, clarifying things, getting less anxious and scared, maybe even made conscious and well-thought decisions. But one should not forget that everything is liable to change, endangering much beloved and carefully formulated plan. How does one plan in such a way to allow for changes (that will certainly come sooner or later)? Here flexible planning comes to our aid.

Consider first that hoarding knowledge, plans, and to-dos inside one’s head is extremely inadvisable as storing data in such a way makes updating it borderline impossible because our brain had already wasted its precious time and resources, settled in with it cozily, and would be rather reluctant to change it or part with it, as it were. Also take into account that according to a range of studies we possess very finite, nay minuscule short-term memory capacity (from the “magic 7 plus/minus 2” to 4 simultaneous foci of more recent studies). Exact number is not of much importance as understanding the modesty of resources possessed. As using the inside storage is out of question, we naturally come to that ancient and well known craft, devised millennia ago when some dude noticed that mud (or blood, or whatever else of intense color) will leave traces on the surfaces and progressed from there to it’s culmination — everyone’s mom’s first and most important commandment “make a list before going to grocery store”.

The main tool of flexible planning is making lists. One should consider making as many of them as needed (one for movies to watch, books to read, grocery list, stuff to do at home, marvelous start-up ideas etc.) so that any idea occurring would end up in one of those. You could go either paper or paperless way, whichever is easier and comes more naturally to you, as simplicity is the key. Generating such lists in unsurprisingly not enough, one has to act upon them:

• as soon as you have a tiny bit of time to spare, you whip out your list, find, and start upon the most important task in it; it is easier to extract the task from an already created list and proceed to deal with it as you don’t have to scourge your mind to find that important thing to do you keep forgetting/postponing, you don’t have the chance of over-deliberating on whether or not it’s worth doing, as the decision on this particular task’s importance have already been made
• keep the list handy to further it’s usefulness and encourage checking it out for stuff undone
• put the task in it’s particular, specific list
• review the lists regularly, at least once a month, and delete the ones that became unimportant or irrelevant, especially when some particular task is on the list for months or years and doesn’t seem to move anywhere. Maybe it is not important anymore, then dispose of it, or maybe you can reformulate it or give it a deadline and see how that goes.

One of the modern and well known instruments to help us further with flexible planning is GTD or getting things done, five step approach of well, getting things done, formulated by David Allen. Let’s have a look on a version of it, presented to us. It consists of five consecutive steps:

1. Capture — gather everything that requires your attention into one container or inbox; whatever ideas come to your mind during the day, links to interesting posts or articles you’ve gathered, but haven’t got the time to read right away, you just go on and dump them all there.
2. Clarify — look into that container and see whether a thing is a task to act upon or is it a source to rely on in your further actions or is it an idea or is it just a thing you found funny/curious/interesting at the time, but now you don’t feel like it. Most of the things that turn up and claim our time and space are of the latter persuasion and are to be discarded upon review.

With information and/or an idea one can use it straight away, cultivate it, or file it for subsequent use.

With an actionable task one can proceed to:

• acting on it right away — if it requires up to five minutes, you might as well go ahead and do it right away
• planning — if it will require more, then you set up a certain time to do it and mark it in your calendar, setting a reminder too

With the one you find non-actionable, you can either

• delegate it — if you find that there is someone else who could do it, pass it on to them, and set up a reminder to check on that later

or

• discard it— if you find upon reflection, that it is not pertinent any longer, let it go

3. Organize — probably the most important step where you set up your space in orderly manner, place reminders and tasks into lists accordingly and where you’d be bound to see them, and review them often. Order and method (unlike effervescent, but generally short-lived motivation) will carry you through.

4. Reflect — review and ponder the tasks, the lists, the whole setup in fact, regularly and adjust in accordance with the recent changes and updates, as nothing is still and without rethinking this whole system becomes outdated rather fast.

5. Engage — there is no two ways about it, at some point you’ll have to bite the bullet and just do it. No planning, Machiavellian scheming, or semi-permanent procrastination will push you over to the other side of The Things That Have Been Done ridge. However, with the path to rational decision making you’d be able to take a step or two with lighter heart and easier mind, and then hopefully reassured, follow further to you target.

There are a few other tools recommended to us by the creators of the videos:

• to create a unified inbox choose a note-making app (e.g., Notes, Evernote, Bear, etc.) or use a small paper notebook, with the two criteria to the thing is being at hand and you liking it, as you’d be using it a lot
• pick a list-making app (e.g., Trello, Workflowy, Wunderlist, Asana, etc.) that will enable you to create and access your lists from your phone, laptop etc.; some of the note-making apps (and the good old notebook, of course) allow you to create lists as well; again you don’t really need a lot, just being able to make lists and it’s overall usability and user experience being non-exasperating would do
• also pick a reminder-app or a calendar (e.g., Google Calendar) to keep time-bound tasks and reminders in there
• choose a cloud storage (e.g., Google Drive, Dropbox etc.) so that you’d be able to access your info, tasks, calendars etc. from any device or any place (NB! keep the passwords different for each service, make them long and nonsensical, and do not forget them)

Now that we went through a lot, were made aware of our (multiple) shortcomings re-rationality and mindfulness, we’ve successfully set up a system to help us to move forward and make decisions, assimilated some of the suggested techniques, developed a balanced routine, and for a while we are moving full steam to The Goal. And then one day we find that The Goal is no more, it has lost it’s appeal and loosened it’s grip on the mind substantially. How does one avoid becoming a hostage to the decision made way back when and by different person altogether? Things change, humans change, but the plan devised months or even years ago is still there. What should one do?

The amount of new information grows at an unprecedented rate and the world changes minute to minute, day to day, and by a proxy it changes everyone of us with it in a multitude of ways. Change impacts everything from big ambitions and plans to choice of food at the local take-out or computer one’s likely to buy. Thus adjusting your original plan and changing it, even in drastic fashion, is normal and even more likely to be expected, as person who set this whole thing up in the first place is not you anymore.

What if you do not complete the tasks you’ve put to yourself? Every day as you slowly progress on the predetermined timeline and while completing each of the small tasks on the way to the bigger goal, you change gradually as well. We do not live in a static world and we are not set in stone either.

The reminder app comes to aid here too— it will bring you regularly to assess and re-assess your tasks, lists and goals. Set it up to remind you (once a week, or once a month, or once a year depending on the scale) to dedicate half an hour or a full hour to ask yourself what do you want now, what target are you choosing now, what results should your efforts bring. This will help you to be more aware of what’s going on and where exactly are you moving.

Lastly, a plan is a means to an end. It is not the whole purpose of your life in itself. It is a tool and if a tool is not serving anymore, feel free to adjust it or discard it and get a new one. Luckily it is biodegradable and will not remain out there forever, as a silent souvenir of the past.