Decision-Making Continuum Dilemma

Some choices deserve an instant answer from the gut; others deserve a month of spreadsheets. The dilemma is that we routinely give each the other's treatment.

See the two failures. First: the snap judgment on the big thing — the house bought at first sight, the partnership sealed on a handshake and a feeling. Second: the agonized month over the small thing — the restaurant researched like a merger, the thirty-dollar purchase comparison-shopped for a week.

The fix is a sort, done at the doorway of every decision. Ask two questions: how costly is it to be wrong, and how reversible is it? High cost and irreversible — slow down, deliberate fully. Low cost or easily undone — decide in seconds and never look back.

Wisdom in practice is mostly this: matching the weight of the process to the weight of the choice. Most people do the opposite, and call it being careful.