I think the subject of decision making is neat… Neat in the sense that there are, for it, a variety of strategies that can be employed and a variety of pitfalls to be avoided.

To be avoided:
- Drift
- Decision fatigue
- Regret

I think most strategies can be boiled down to a form of mindfulness. Take, for example, Stephen Levitt’s advice on a recent episode of “People I Mostly Admire”. He divides decisions into two categories: the ones in which you lack information, and the ones where you have lots of information. For the first, he advises to be wary of self-interested experts and find, instead, a friend or family member who has faced a similar decision, has done research or knows more about it than you, and follow their choice. For the second he imagines the outcome of both choices and aims for the one in which he would feel the least regret. If he is still uncertain about the choice to make, his advice, based on research, is “to take whatever path is the biggest deviation from the status quo” because people who have done so, who have made the biggest change, “are on average happier than the people” who haven’t. (You can listen to the whole explanation at 23:36 into the episode.)

Levitt’s advice is neat: count on someone you trust, imagine a future self in one decision scenario or the other, or take the opportunity for the biggest change.

The latter part of his advice seems related to one of Mother Teresa’s tips for humility… She wrote that when faced with a choice, “choose what is hardest”. I often think about this during the day. Faced with little choices, it’s in my nature to pick what is easier, what is lazier or more comfortable. But building up a tolerance for what is harder, or more uncomfortable, is more rewarding in the long run.

While there might be a tendency to look at decisions as a vast field of research, I’m tempted to look at decisions as a form of friction… Being mindful and observing the tensions that arise from the choices at hand is interesting!