Decision-Making Skills: 4 Strategies To Be More Effective
Test-drive your decision-making skills to make them stronger.
Whether you’re heading out to the lake or vacationing in another country, these are excellent opportunities to test out your decision-making skills. One of the factors that creates a lot of overwhelm is not knowing what to do or what the “right” answer is.
We have to make decisions every day, and knowing how to be more effective and efficient, making good decisions quickly, will help your life feel calmer.
Our brain has a limited amount of decision-making capacity.
We make better decisions when we're well-rested and fuelled properly. And on the flip side, we make poorer decisions when we're tired, hungry, stressed, or impaired.
Here are four simple tips to help you make better decisions:
1. Limit the number of decisions you need to make in a day.
Making fewer decisions each day is ideal for conserving brain energy. Think about strengthening your habits — those things you do like brushing your teeth in the morning that require zero decision-making energy.
2. Make important decisions early in the day.
If you have important decisions to make, set aside time in the morning. As we creep into the afternoon and evening hours, our choices often get poorer because our brain gets tired. Have you ever had grand plans to eat healthfully, but by mid-afternoon or dinner time, after a fruit and veggie-filled day, your good intentions fly out the window and you're snacking on potato chips?
You may have even noticed that it takes you longer to finish a project later in the day than it does in the morning. Working with your energy boosts your decision-making power.
3. Plan ahead for big decisions.
Having guidelines for making choices will help you figure things out quickly. For example, if you're planning something like your next vacation, first decide what your intention is for your trip. What do you want it to feel like? What are the "must-dos" and "must-sees?"
4. Be nice to yourself.
Making choices is hard, and not all of them will work out as you hope. Unless you have a crystal ball and can perfectly predict every decision you'll ever make (I wish!), make the best decision you can with the information you have at the time.
How my decision-making skills came in handy on a recent trip.
My husband and I were recently on our 10-day dream vacation to Tuscany, Italy. There was one day on the trip when the weather royally messed up our plans.
I had lots of space for improvisation in our agenda, but I had one specific day planned to visit a region called Cinque Terre. This is an area of five towns set in the hillsides, which are hundreds of years old and quite picturesque. However, it’s also very busy, so there are many details, including transportation, activities, and restaurant reservations, that need to be booked in advance.
We were really looking forward to the day, but Mother Nature sent a rare thunderstorm our way, which started at 4 am, and so much rain fell over the next 6 hours that several businesses in the town where we were staying (Lerici) flooded.
As you can imagine, we were tired from being kept up most of the night by the thunderstorm. We were uncertain whether to make the trip in the rain, given the time and money we had invested in planning it. These were not ideal decision-making circumstances, and I started to feel overwhelmed.
So, we decided to have breakfast and take our time figuring out what to do.
First, we wouldn’t be able to stick to our agenda because of the torrential rain, so we felt the disappointment and accepted it. Then, we had to decide whether to put in the effort to make a modified plan. It was supposed to clear up in the afternoon, but we checked in with ourselves and our energy levels, and we weren’t feeling up to it.
In the past, I would have gone ahead with the original plan, come hell or high water (literally), but we likely would have worn ourselves out and been less able to handle any unexpected situations that came up (there are plenty when you’re travelling). Plus, the intention of the vacation was to connect as a couple, and pushing ourselves to “check a box” didn't align with our goal of connecting while having fun.
Also, we were staying in a beautiful area with sandy beaches and gorgeous views, so we felt more aligned having a slow morning and enjoying a beach day instead. My husband had the biggest smile when we swam in the ocean that afternoon, and I can almost guarantee that wouldn't have happened if we stuck to our original plan and pushed through.
Balancing our best-laid plans with being true to ourselves helped us have a wonderful day.
Trust me, letting go of the plan and the Euros wasn't easy, but our sanity and happiness were more important. With the information we had and keeping our intentions in mind, we made the best decision we could, and it worked out beautifully!
Having a lot of decisions to make can be tiring and lead to decision fatigue.
However, if you use your next vacation to practice, you could come away with some excellent skills practice that you can use in the rest of your life! You may not make a great decision in every overwhelming situation, but every outcome has opportunities for growth and learning. Reflect on what went well and what you would do differently next time, and you will quickly become a great decision maker!
If you enjoyed this article, read these next:
