Top 5 Effective Ways to Improve your Decision Making Skills

Decisions make the major part of your life, we need to take decisions in minutest of things, what to wear, what to eat, where to go, who to meet and the list goes on. We need to make decisions in our personal, social and professional lives and many of them leave an ever lasting impact on us. Therefore, it is really important to sharpen our decision making skills with time, especially if we are about to enter a practical and professional life. Improved decision making skills benefit us in a number of ways, they help us in evaluating the situation, in recognizing the significance and consequences, in weighing the risk and most importantly, in helping us to avoid the same mistake. Decision making comes in two sizes, individual decision making and group decision making, but we will stay focused on basic decision making aspects, for further elaborate articles on both aspects, stay with us.

While making a decision, people consider different things and as not everyone is same, things that are important for one person may not be important for another; we have compiled a list of top 5 facets that play an important role in assisting us to make an important decision.

Gather and Evaluate all the Information

While taking a decision, it is really important that you research and gather all the necessary and relevant information regarding the matter. Once you have it all, evaluate its different aspects before getting to the final point, it is important that you know of the consequences of your decision. Important decisions require thorough research and hard consideration, hence, instead of taking rash decisions, think carefully. Before deciding over anything, make sure that you have all the options laid out in front of you:

• Are there any other ways to cope with the situation?
• Is there any other way that is more effective than the existing one?
• Do you really need to make this choice?
• Have I missed on anything?
• What will be the consequences?

Take your time and think of these points, do you know that many people ruin an important opportunity due to their impulsive decisions? And many more waste their important time taking decisions in thing that are not worth a second shot. Think rationally about the situation and decision and decide whether it’s worthy of your time and effort of not.

Dip you Feet in Different Pond

 You cannot have Shepherd’s pie every day; no matter how big you are a fan of it you simply cannot stuff yourself with the same dish every day. Same goes for your brain as well, you cannot keep it in first class position by feeding the same type of information every time, come on its your brain and it needs ‘food’ too, why not give it a variety then? It has been researched that people who indulge in unusual and ‘out of their way’ type of activities before making an important choice, make the right decisions 90% of time. There are countless ways to go out of the way and give your brain a wake-up call. Some of the ways are:

• Painting or drawing
• Cooking and baking
• Taking a break
• Doing some physical exercise (aerobics, yoga, karate etc.)
• Solving some mathematic and analytic sums to work your brain

Changing tracks will refresh your mind and many times you will solve the problem ‘unconsciously’. Want to take an important decision? Wait and have a break first.

The Ignored ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ List

 Lists are not only the form of content that keeps a reader engaged and glued to the page, the reason you are still reading, but it is also an additional help for important matters like making an important choice. Honestly, how many times have you thought about the benefits and risks of the choice you are making? And, of those times, how many times have you actually dedicated five to ten minutes of your time to write them down on a paper? Humans are impulsive by nature and make rash decisions many times, those who think do not take note of the important points and as a result, after some time, they evaporate from their minds like any other thought. We know that you are really busy, you need to take decisions every day and this one may be the ‘one of a lifetime’ decision for you but it is important that you take some out and write down all the pros and cons of the decision you are about to take. Write down all the benefits at one side and the consequences on another half of the page, now count them and see which of them outnumbered the other. It will be lot easier for you to make a choice now.

The Brainstorming Session

Brainstorming session is an important phase for creative artists, the designers and writers in particular, but many of us may not know that it is an important segment of a decision making activity also. How do we have a brainstorming session while making decisions? No we are not talking about the previous point but we are talking about having ‘second opinion’ of your choice before finalizing it. Each one of us has a special person, parents, sibling, partner or a close friend, that is always there when we need to hug or kick someone, these are the people that you should involve in your decision making. You must understand that there is nothing like secret or ‘personal’ decisions, sooner or later everyone will know about it, so it is good that you take a second opinion from someone. If making individual decisions, consult your friend or any nearest being and if the decision is related to your office, talk to your teammates about it and see what they have to say in the cause. Having a second opinion will not only relieve you from the burden but will also help you in seeing the things more clearly.

 Assess and Plan

 Like a pros and cons list, assess all the risks involved in making the choice, there are a number of risks involved, based on decisions. Some of the common risks are:

• Financial risk
• Aftereffects
• Depth of Consequences
• Recovery Time

 And a lot more.
Instead of just weighing the benefits and taking the decision, it is good to know the risks involved in it. Research thoroughly and learn from your previous experiences, it has been noticed that individuals come across the same situation and need to take the same kind of decisions for a number of time. Previous experiences and even the incidences that you have noticed of the people around you help you in making important and effective choice. Weigh and evaluate the dangers and see how long you can take it.

The next step in the process is to have a back-up plan to meet and cover the consequences, as you cannot ‘test the depth of river with both feet’, you cannot risk all that you have, it’s an old proverb to save something for the rainy day and we completely support it. Assess the risks and keep your safety jacket ready.