A lot of my early learning on decision making came from a Poker lesson from a wise friend and the Heath brothers’ book – Decisive. The key lesson? Focus on having a good decision making process first and don’t confuse good outcomes with a good process.
Getting the decision making process right is akin to getting the science of decision making right – it is guaranteed to improve outcomes.
However, the science is just a first step – it improves outcomes on average for anyone who chooses to apply it. The art of decision making, on the other hand, involves figuring out what works for you. And, much of my learning on decision making in the past few years has come from paying attention to what a good decision feels like.
Paying attention to that feeling at the pit of the stomach when making a decision and observing how the smallest doubts actually manifest themselves in reality are ways to school ourselves in the art.
Considering a big part of what we do in a day is make decisions, there are few things we can learn that provide higher leverage.
