My colleagues is a genius. He shared a grand picture with me, and prompted me to think of the following.
Life is essentially full of decision trees. We make so many decisions a day.
- What are we going to eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner?
- Do I want to have supper?
- I feel thirsty now. Should I continue finishing this email, or should I take a break to get more water?
- There are tasks 1, 2, 3, 4. Which one should I prioritise?
- I have two appointments clash. Which one should I go to?
Each decision making point, we go through a few stages.
Define evalution criteria
- At the current stage, what are the factors to consider?
- What are the requirements for my options?
- For example, for food, I want it to be filling, simple, affordable, easy to access?
- It is even better to define quantitative requirements.
- filling - 3k calories?
- simple - 3 different types of food items？
- affordable - budget $10?
- easy to access - within 10 minutes of reach / preparation time?
- We could even give weightage to each option, and derive a single formula that takes into account all the requirements to calculate a single score for final ranking of the options. This will become our evaluation matrix.
Gathering information
We next gather information to fill in the matrix.
- What resources do I have and am willing to spend on meeting the requirments?
- This is usually time, money, energy level, and mood
- emotional attachment / requirement is the hardest to quantify, justified
- What are the available options that will meet my requirements?
- What are the costs (time, $$) for each of these available options?
Evaluate options
- Put the requirements and available options side by side, and then fill in our evaluation matrix with the scoring. If the evaluation formula is well-designed, the option that scores the highest should be our desired choice.
Make a judgement
- Pick the top choice should be simple now, since the decision making is already engineered in the entired process. There should not be any more wavering, feeling uncertained, or unsure.
Decision making is so important that every minute we live is a result of the decision made previously, be it by others or ourselves. Making it a science, instead of an art, may simplify things for ourselves.
I shall be more conscious with my decision making points and give this process a try.
