When you hear people share their opinion on decision-making, you will often see them ignore the fact that real decisions are made under pressure, with incomplete information, and in full view of other people. What follows tends to be reassuring rather than accurate.
Read Also: How to Maximize Your Time in 8+ Easy Steps
Here are seven steps below on how to maximize your time. They are “simple” only in the sense that gravity is simple. None of them will flatter you.
- Admit what you want before you pretend to be rational
Most bad decisions don’t come from lack of information. They come from people hiding their preferences behind spreadsheets. You already know what you want. What you don’t like is how it sounds out loud.
You say you’re “weighing options” about taking a job. What you’re really doing is hoping someone gives you permission to choose the higher-paying one without feeling shallow. Or the safer one without feeling cowardly.
Pause here.
Say the ugly preference in a full sentence.
If you can’t, you’re not deciding, you’re stalling.
- Notice which option makes you reach for “one more opinion”
If you keep asking for advice, you’re not gathering wisdom. You’re shopping for absolution.
There’s always one option that sends you back to Reddit, group chats, podcasts, and that friend who “thinks differently.” That’s the option you’re afraid to own.
Example: You know which apartment you want. But you keep sending photos to people who don’t live there, won’t pay the rent, and will forget this conversation by Tuesday.
The option that requires the most outside validation is usually the one you already chose—and don’t trust yourself to live with.
- Ask what future-you will be embarrassed to admit
Not regret. Embarrassment.
Regret is emotional and dramatic. Embarrassment is quiet and honest.
Five years from now, which sentence would make you lower your voice?
“I stayed because it was comfortable.” Or “I left because I was bored.”
“I didn’t try because I didn’t want to look stupid.” Or “I tried and it didn’t work.”
One of these will sting more than the others. That’s not an accident.
Pause again.
This is where people usually scroll.
- Subtract the fantasy version of the outcome
Every option comes with a cinematic trailer you keep replaying.
You imagine the business after it’s successful, not the first year of explaining it at family gatherings.
Imagining the relationship after it’s stable, not the awkward months where you’re renegotiating who you are.
Picturing the discipline after it’s automatic, not the mornings where you argue with yourself like a toddler.
Remove the highlight reel. Decide based on the boring middle.
If the boring middle feels intolerable, the decision is already made, just not admitted.
- Identify the cost you’re pretending doesn’t exist
Every decision has a price tag you’re hoping won’t be charged.
Staying costs time.
Leaving costs identity.
Choosing one thing costs becoming someone who didn’t choose another.
People love to say, “There’s no wrong choice.” That’s comforting nonsense. There are only choices whose costs you’re willing to pay, and ones you’re not.
Effective decision-makers aren’t brave. They’re honest about what they refuse to pay for.
- Decide once, then stop reopening the case like a bad lawyer
Nothing kills a good decision faster than repeatedly putting it back on trial.
You chose the gym. Then you keep wondering if yoga would’ve been better.
You chose the city. Then every bad day becomes evidence you chose wrong.
You chose the major. Then every LinkedIn post destabilizes you.
This isn’t open-mindedness. It’s self-sabotage disguised as thoughtfulness.
Make the decision. Close the file.
New information can reopen it. Mood swings cannot.
- Accept that “effective” doesn’t mean “comfortable”
This is the part most people quietly avoid telling you.
An effective decision often feels wrong at first. Not because it is wrong, but because it removes a familiar excuse.
Once you decide, you lose the right to complain about uncertainty.
You lose the comfort of “I’m still figuring it out.”
You gain responsibility. Which is why people delay decisions forever and call it being careful.
If you’re waiting for a decision to feel safe, you’re not deciding—you’re negotiating with fear.
Final thought
You already know how to make effective decisions. You just don’t like who you’ll have to be after you make them.
That’s not a logic problem.
That’s a courage problem.
And no checklist fixes that.
