Making effective decision; Seven simple ways to do it right

Whether you are choosing to buy a car or planning to get married, as individuals, we must deliberate on our options before we make a choice.

For instance, buying a car comes with lots of varying options such as buying one with automatic gear or the manual type. You would want to consider the brand of your next car, or the colour, or other stuff like mileage. The same goes for getting married. You would ask yourself personal questions like ‘Am I making the right choice?’, ‘What makes this person better than the others?’ and so on.

Why you need to make an effective decision

While we may be lucky enough to make a second pick, in life, we do not always have a second chance. Some opportunities come around only once. You can buy another car for instance, if you got your specifications wrong the first time. But choosing a life partner on the other hand may be a bit harder than that. 

While you may learn from previous mistakes and use the experience to make more informed decisions in the future, great care and caution must always be exercised at every crossroads to avoid unnecessary waste of useful resources like money and time. Especially other people’s time. 

Consider a situation where you are a line manager of a company where other people also depend on your choice of action. An inappropriate decision could cost you your job which in turn creates a possible negative effect on your family. 

The list below gives seven simple ways to make a good and effective decision.

Making effective decisions easily

1. Know why making the right decision is crucial: As stated earlier, we may not always have second chances after a decision has been made. For this reason, it is important to always consider the consequences of the action we are about to take. If you are to embark on a long journey, for instance, you would want to make estimates on resources to be spent. Will it be worth it? What route are you taking? Can you afford to get there later? Should you go by flight or by road? Knowing the specific answers to these questions will guide you to make a more effective decision.
2. Identify all available options: Before you dive into the unknown with the hope of getting it right, you should ensure you have all available options in front of you. Sometimes, the least desirable of the options turns out a better choice. Do not underestimate an option. Get a paper and pen if possible to make a list. This is what will help you in the next step.
3. Analyse and compare your options: After you have been able to list your options preferably on a piece of paper, you can then go through their merits and demerits and easily strike through as one outweighs the other.
4. Do research: Now that you have listed your choices and eliminated the odd ones out, check if you are now able to make the most effective decision with what is left. If you still have a few options left and you seem stuck on them, you should consider doing more research on them. Tools like Google, textbooks, library and even friends can be of tangible help at this point. Like having to choose who to marry. You would want to check the family background of your suitors, cleanliness, anger triggers and so on.
5. Make your choice: After all is said and done, and all necessary findings have been carried out, you should now be able to make your choice effectively. As long as you have done your assignments well enough, you should communicate with your intuition and let it guide you. Build up some confidence, make the decision and stand by it.
6. Now execute: The first thing you need is confidence! Once you have chosen the most favourable of the options before you with all facts checked, mutter up some courage now and execute your chosen option with confidence. There is no shame in asking for help along the way. If you ever feel the need to, do not allow your ego to get in the way of progress.
7. Now examine the outcome: Congratulations, you have now made your choice and executed it. How was it? Easy? Your aim was to get the desired outcome at the end of the day; if you did that is good for you. If otherwise, ask yourself what you did wrong and at what point. What influenced the result at that point? There is a need always to re-examine the steps whether success was achieved or not. Doing this will make most future decisions less challenging at every crossroads.

Conclusion

It is important to know that we can still get it wrong even after all considerations but the chances are lower as compared to just diving into a choice. You will save yourself some quality time and resources if you make it a habit to follow these simple steps in your decision-making processes.