Making Smart Choices: 8 Keys to Making Effective Decisions

The way you frame your decision at the outset can make all the difference. 

State your decision problems carefully, acknowledge their complexity and avoid unwarranted assumptions and option-limiting prejudices.

A decision is a means to an end. Ask yourself what you most want to accomplish and which of your interests, values, concerns, fears, and aspirations are most relevant to achieving your goal.

Decisions with multiple objectives cannot be resolved by focusing on any one objective.

Your decision can be no better than your best alternative.

Assessing frankly the consequences of each alternative will help you to identify those that best meet your objectives—all your objectives.

Because objectives frequently conflict with one another, you’ll need to strike a balance. Some of this must sometimes be sacrifices in favor of some of that.

What could happen in the future and how likely is it that it will?

When decisions involve uncertainties, the desired consequence may not be the one that actually results. A much-deliberated bone marrow transplant may or may not halt cancer.

What you decide today could influence your choices tomorrow, and your goals for tomorrow should influence your choices today. Thus many important decisions are linked over time.