Decision Making

Hi there!

In this section of the toolshed, there is everything you need to know about making effective decisions.
Grab whatever tools you would find useful, just remember to put them back when you are done!
Jono - Founder of Improvus

What to do? What to do? What to do? I am pulling my hair out … I don’t know how to choose!

A decision is selecting an option from two or more alternatives.

Below, you will find a range of insights, tools and advice that can help you make good decisions, be an efficient decision maker, understand influences on our decisions, and help us compare different options.

Happy learning!

What Influences our Decisions?

Have you ever taken a moment to acknowledge just how many internal and external voices influence our decisions?

We may think we are making logical and rational choices, but oftentimes, there are underlying factors that greatly affect the way we make up our minds. I urge us to learn about these different voices so that we can understand how they influence our decision making.

The analogy I use when exploring the range of voices is that of a table; where I, my conscious / present mind, am sitting at the head. All around the Decision Making Table are the different perspectives, often subconscious, that influence my decision. Some of these viewpoints I have purposefully invited, whereas others are there regardless of my preferences. For me, it is all about awareness!

The very fact of acknowledging the voices means that we can incorporate them into our decision making instead of having them influence our choices without us even knowing about it.

Can you Read this jumbled paragraph?

Our brains are amazing! We have developed a range of mental shortcuts to help us function as efficiently as possible.

In the jumbled paragraph exercise above, our brains focus the majority of our attention on the first and last letters of a word and ignore what is in the middle. This strategy means that we can understand the text without having to compute every single letter.

Our brains use shortcuts like this one to make sense of all the chaotic information we are bombarded with throughout our day to day lives. They are vital, but they also come with danger, as they can lead us into decision making traps.

Explore the full article on Heuristics and Biases …

Tools and Thoughts

What are the basics of Decision Making? This is a wee thought piece on the foundations of decision making.

Are you a Satisficer or Maximiser? A Maximiser aims for the perfect solution; a Satisficer for good enough … rate your own style.

Regret and Pride Exercise Explore decisions we have made in the past and apply those lessons to our decision making today. An exercise to learn how you can make good decisions ...

How do we evaluate our decisions? A philosophical meandering in terms of knowing if we have made good decisions or not.

Click on the images for Decision Making Tools.