Happens to me a lot and thought to share the 7 ways that I use to cope with confusion and frustration in the entire decision-making process.

I have spent a lot of time struggling to make simple decisions – ‘Which denim jacket to buy’, ‘What restaurant to go for dinner’, ‘Which hair colour would suit my hair?’ and so on. These are simple everyday decisions, but not being able to make a decision is a genuine problem that I face.

And I think there are others like me who might experience the same. I am not even talking about the right choices, but merely making a choice that you are 80% content with, is sometimes difficult. That last bit that I subtly added in there, that is where the problem lies – ‘being content with’.

If you know about the decision paradox, you’d know that no matter what you select, you’d never be content with your final selection as you’d always experience this feeling of missing of out on the ‘other alternative’ and what if it were better than the choice you made.

However, in the long run, does it even matter? Probably not, what does matter though, is the time that you wasted in making those simple decisions that you could have productively utilised writing a poem, exploring a theatre, reading an article, playing a sport, just anything that you’d want to do.

Everthing you do, has an opportunity cost of time, so choose wisely.

Given this backdrop, I thought why not, just have a simple rulebook, that can guide me to make a better choice and not be burdened by the decision paradox.

So here are my 7 simple ways that have helped me make better decisions faster.

#1. Take the first option you see that fits your criteria almost 70% – 80% and go with it. Easy.

To explain you with my story, just today evening, I decided to have some dumplings for dinner,and as strange as it may sound, I have never had them in a restaurant setting ever and luckily, I found a cosy little place selling handmade dumplings with a decent ambience and pricing – so it just fit my criteria perfectly, and the obvious decision should have been to go there right?

Wrong! Not to me, because something in me told me to explore a bit more, walk down the road a few blocks to see what other options do I have – I couldn’t find anything similar.

Note that now I have a benchmark and everything that I would find I shall start comparing it to this one. More often than not, I’d not be able to find something similar or better (experience says that). The first one is just going to be the best one – there are a lot of psychological reasons to this than factual a) I have now missed the boat – in this case I already walked two blocks and going back was not possible b) there is a confirmation bias that it is better than other options you’d encounter, and is difficult to overcome that in that heat of the moment.

Anyway, now I keep walking towards my second option which I had in mind – just that I didn’t check the directions and then ended in the wrong place – so was a bit frustrated now, and I ended up buying some average Sushi from an ordinary place.

So the lesson learnt is I could have had a good experience eating what I wanted to – dumplings, had I selected the very first option which met most of the criteria.

Also, that would have saved me time and the mental struggle.

#2. Be clear about what you want and stick to it

This one is simple, just don’t juggle too much – it drains your mental energy and leads you to confusion. Keep it clear in your head what you want at a high level – not being too fussy about the details but just knowing the broad headlines of what you want. If you find it difficult, just close your eyes and imagine yourself wearing, buying, staying, playing, just doing that and living it – you’d know what you are expecting and now look around – does the reality match your expectation?

Restricting your choices does wonder for good mental health – instead use that energy on other important things

#3. Decide on how much time you’d like to spend on that activity

Especially when it comes to restaurants and shopping, set a time-limit by which you would decide on something – be it anything, doesn’t matter – the important thing is to decide by then.

Time pressure is an effective tool as it forces us to cut through those million useless thoughts and focus on that one thing that matters and take a call.

For example, for shopping grocery, I will set a time to complete the shopping in under 30 mins, and if I spend more than that, I’d have to cut on the other more important things.

#4. Develop certain principles that can help you navigate through options easily

For example, I have learnt it the hard way that I value quality more than cost. So I will avoid buying from a factory outlet even if it is cheaper. It is cheap for a reason. Another principle is to not buy without trying it or not to rush through purchasing decisions as that can work against you.

These are simple tips that I am sure, even you would have mastered through years of decision making.

It’s estimated that the average adult makes about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions each day

http://science.unctv.org/content/reportersblog/choices

#5. Use a funnel approach

If you have a broad range, select the first category that comes to mind and then try using filters (just like the ones you have on apps) to narrow your search. This approach will allow you to look in the right direction and come to the outcomes faster – we all do this, but sometimes I think we get lost especially in a new environment when presented with a plethora of options which are designed to confuse you in the first place.

#6. Keep it clean and organised

Now that you know what you want, you have narrowed your options and have decided on the criteria; it’s time to be methodical while approaching the problem.

For example, when my husband and I, we were looking for a house on lease, I had created a small note of which locations, what apartments we’d be inspecting, what is the rental, what amenities are available and what the commute time to work would be. And not a mental note but an actual record on my organiser that we share to help understand the details of the developments made on the decision so far.

You don’t have to pressurise your short term memory into remembering all these details later, as you can always revisit the notes, and it also helps you to think clearly. Another similar tool that I use is mind-mapping and I do it the conventional way using a paper and a pen – making connections, understanding the distances, relationships, patterns much better. Try it out if you haven’t done this ever.

#7. Now this one is a classic – Listen to your gut

It’s what everyone’s told you so far, and it’s cliche, but the very fact that it is famous is because it works. And it works, because there is science to it – your subconscious figures out the finer intricacies of the matter that is sometimes invisible to the naked eye. Bizzare right, what your eyes can’t see, your brain can – like it has eyes of its own. It just does the math quickly to know where this would click or not.

You are constantly thinking of how to do things better, be it at work or in personal life. How could you have done that project differently if you were to do it all over again? How could you probably improve this recipe a little better the next time? How could you shop more productively? Does it sound familiar?

Read the below checklist and tick against the ones you think applies to you. 

1. You watch the ‘Brightside‘ videos more often than the music videos
2. You read articles on ‘Medium‘ over browsing on Instagram
3. You learn from everyone around you irrespective of their age, caste, sex, experience, education
4. You try to find positivity even in the darkest places.
5. You beat yourself to death if you do the same mistake twice.
6. You crave criticism like pregnant women crave chocolate and you find feedback as a blessing in disguise.
7. You constantly improvise, that’s the only way to get better at a skill right!
8. You practice what you preach. It’s a sin to say something that you wouldn’t do yourself.
9. You hate it when people use jazz that they are not even aware of.
10. You feel suffocated if you find yourself in an unproductive session or a directionless discussion.

Now if you answered ‘Yes’ at-least 7 out of 10 times, you are a self-development junkie. If you answered ‘Yes’ in over 5 instances but less than 7 you are not a junkie yet, you are content with your self and less worrisome with what others have think about you. If you got a score of less than 5, you enjoy life on your terms and you probably don’t care what the world around you does and probably are in self-denial. Not always but might apply to a few.

This was just a fun way of probably knowing oneself better, and the above indicators are by no means any signs of telling you to follow this or not. That is totally up to you and no one else can/should dictate those terms to you. If you are content with who you are, that’s probably the best for you and need not always look for improvement.

You will have never have more of the finite resources than you do now

This is more of an extension of my previous article ‘The art of procrastination’. I have had two realizations ever since. 1) You need to steal time for things you love. 2) get away from your to-do list if you have been maintaining one.

You need to be creative with time

In this article, I will focus on the first aspect alone.  You will always have a lot of distractions in life. Ask a stay-at-home person and they would say that all of their time just gets lost in some black hole. You cook food, clean stuff, do the laundry, ready the kids, watch some television or check the social media accounts and the day is over.

However, if you are working full time you just suddenly make time for an 8-9 hour job, where did this time come from? It is simple, all the other activities just get squeezed into the routine somewhere. So that means for all working full-time professionals, we all have approximately 16-18 hours over the weekend for ourselves to pursue our passion and do what we like. Easy, right? Unfortunately, it’s not quite what happens. So what really happens? 

Well, broadly two things occupy your time entertainment and routine household stuff.

Normally the hangover from the entire work–week would occupy a huge mind space, and you ought to unwind a little. And when accessing content is super easy in today’s times, it is difficult to restrain ourselves from reaching that remote. And let’s be honest a little Netflix doesn’t hurt, eh? Let’s find out.

And what about all of those numerous mundane activities that you had pushed throughout the week? It suddenly finds its way through your to-do list and into your chores time. Buy groceries, return that pair of shoes that didn’t fit well, call the maintenance guy to fix that piece of shit that’s broken – you get the drill, don’t you? It’s just a never-ending cycle of things that demand your attention and if you don’t pay much focus your time just gets sucked up by the black hole which we define as procrastination.

But is it you were just being lazy, not picking up your passion over your routine, not prioritizing things or we just never realized the concept of being caught up in the whirlwind. Or we realized, and we never did something about it because hey, I have read all these motivational blogs and stuff but I can’t really deal with it right now and I am just living off one day at a time.

Now I truly believe a lot of us will fall in the latter not being aware of what we want or perhaps how we want to pursue that goal. And probably I don’t know it all either, but I try each day and I evolve and when I feel I have succeeded a little, I share. And I get it, it need not always be a side hustle or about starting your own business, it can be about playing that guitar or rather simple just read the book that you always wanted to or the backyard garden that you wanted to nourish or just bizarre things like contributing on your Google account or reviewing the restaurants you have been to. Anything really, anything that brings you joy.

So I will share two techniques that have worked for me.

1) Prioritizing passion over routine

Trust me you shall always have enough and more routine things in your to-do to focus on, but do you wish to waste time on troubleshooting those or do something more satisfying – your choice – if cleaning house gives you the satisfaction then that’s all right too. Whilst everyone loves a clean house, remember that everything comes at a cost and prioritizing that over your passion might cost you a lot – not in terms of money but in terms of emotions. Just close your eyes and imagine yourself on that deathbed – do you want a clean house or do you want to be reminiscing the memories of the great things you achieved. The choice is yours.
P.S – Also cleaning the house is a metaphor for all things routine, so don’t think I am against cleaning or something, I love doing it but I just realized that I love something else a little more. So I am okay with a few undone dishes and clothes, but not okay to let go of the weekend, and the weekend after the weekend not writing or publishing my blogs.

2) Steal every iota of time, every second counts

When I said earlier you got to steal time, what I meant was you literally have to find time in bizarre stuff – while taking a shower, your thoughts are running wild anyway, probably think of how you can optimize the day to get the most out of today. So you decide on taking a break from your workout routine; there it is your one hour. While in between meetings, if you get this great idea, write it down, discuss it with someone. See if you can finish your work earlier in the day and leave early that one day of the week every week. See if you can do something early morning, if you are a morning person. I am not, but if you are there are a lot of benefits in doing this. See if you find the time during the commute.  While the vegetable is cooking or when you are waiting for something. There is ample time, it just isn’t packed in a beautiful box and presented to you. You just need to ingrain these in your routine practices. And soon you will have ample time. Also, if you binge-watch Netflix, here is a small tip.

While you are watching your favorite show, just towards the last 10-12 minutes, try to context switch to think of what excites you more, what was pressing on your mind since morning, start doing it or if that’s not possible, start thinking about it or start researching on it – trust me, you will not want to continue the next episode even if it ends on a cliffhanger.

That is the power of true passion – you like doing certain things, but love your passion. Now, this comes with practice. You will not switch-off Netflix because I told you to or because you read this article. But you take one small step each day and practice it till you find out what works best for you.

And come on, you love your passion, don’t you? Because that is something unique to you and it defines your personality. And if you don’t really know what you are passionate about just start with something you like – photography, reading, dance, tweeting, singing, something niche perhaps – just start with that and keep doing it, trust me you will find what you are passionate about soon.