We make thousands of decisions each and every day. Your ability to make the decision making process as efficient as possible will have a huge impact on every aspect of your personal and professional life.
What Is The Decision Making Process?
In both our personal and professional life, we are called to make decisions every single day. Each decision forces us to choose between several options — from something as simple as deciding what to wear, to choosing our future career path, to moving our office or company in a new direction. Decision making is a skill you can hone and develop over time, because making decisions in a timely manner are vital for your overall success.
Steps In The Decision Making Process
1. Get Clear On The Decision That Needs To Be Made
Clarity will help you make the best choice. In order to be as clear as possible, ask yourself “What’s the problem I find myself facing?” Go as deep into the issue as you can.
Is this issue something that needs to be dealt with immediately or do you have some time to think about it?
2. Find All The Necessary Information
It helps if you gather all the necessary information that is needed in order to help you make the best and most informed decision. That may include finding out as much as you can on all the parties involved. Is there more than one person involved in this situation? What resources and information will you need to help you make your decision?
3. Look At All The Options
Lay everything out on the table so you can clearly see what potential options are available to you.
4. Evaluate The Evidence
Compare all of the options you just laid out — you can put together a pros and cons list for each option to help you evaluate which might be the best option for you to pursue.
Make a decision based off of which option you thought was best from your pros and cons list.
6. Implement Your Chosen Option
Take action and implement the option you see to be the best choice.
7. Analyse The Outcome
Look closely at the outcome of the decision you made. Did you get the desired results? Were others involved happy with the outcome?
8. Review
Take note of what worked best and what didn’t work as you would have liked from this decision. Hold on to those notes for future reference.
Decision Making Common Challenges
There are a lot of common challenges that everyone faces when they have to make certain decisions:
Having too much information that you find yourself overwhelmed, or not having enough information to properly work with. Both situations can leave you stumped and can stop you from following your gut.
Not clearly identifying the problem. If the issue you are faced with is complex, it may not be so easy to see what the root issue you are faced with really is.
Having too high expectations of the outcome. Thinking that everything will work out exactly as you imagine them to.
Look For Unexpected Problems
Only Giving Yourself One Solution
Open yourself up to a wide range of solutions. Limiting yourself in options could lead to making a wrong decision. If you are relying on one source of information to base your decision on that can be dangerous if the source isn’t reliable.
Bad Timing
Sometimes having a lot of time to make a certain decision is incredibly helpful, and sometimes it’s not. When making a huge life-altering decision, you most often want to have as much time as possible. In cases where you aren’t given the gift of time you will need to be able to know when to delay making a decision or not.
This option is great to help you weigh the evidence you have gathered on various options. Lay the information out as you would put together a tree. The different branches record the probability of success and estimated result so you can see all the potential outcomes side by side.
A Decision Matrix
To start off, you can list all of your decision options as rows.
Then label each column as a different relevant factor in making your decision.
Establish a scale to give value to each combination of options and factors.
Decide the importance level of each factor in making the final decision. Assign weight to each factor accordingly.
Multiply your original ratings by the weighted rankings.
Add up the factors under each decision option.
The option that has the highest score wins.
This article has some good examples if you are still unsure how to make a decision matrix.
Create A Classic Pros And Cons List
It’s an oldie but a good and safe bet in the decision making process. Make two columns, pros and cons. Fill in as many as you can think of for each column, and the side with the most points listed will help you in making your decision.
Tips To Keep In Mind When Making A Decision
Keep Your Goal In Mind When Making Your Decision
It’s easy to get caught up in the decision making process itself, wondering if you will or won’t make the right decision. That is a key moment where people tend to forget about the ultimate goal at hand, beyond making a quick decision. Keep your eye on where you are ultimately headed and the decisions will be much easier to make.
Consider The Consequences
Good, bad, or otherwise, think about the consequences of the decision you are about to make. What is the impact or consequence of this decision, on yourself and the people around you?
Conclusion
It may seem daunting when a huge decision in your life needs to be made, but thankfully you have an arsenal of tools to help the process go smoother and more efficiently. Whether you use the decision matrix, or an old fashioned pros and cons list, the more you practice, the greater results you will get.
One decision that won’t be difficult to make is if you are deciding which college to attend. Earn the degree that will help you get one step closer to your dreams from University of the People — a tuition-free, 100% online, US accredited university. Here at UoPeople, anyone, anywhere can achieve great results with us.
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