Big life decisions involve significant consideration before proceeding. For example, selecting a university, marrying a spouse, or buying a home. These choices are worthy of much forethought.
But those weighty decisions are few; most of the choices we make each day are trivial. What you will wear, what you will eat, what music to listen to, etc. For these, it’s common to see how you feel, then choose. But the sheer number of these decisions can lead you to a reliance on how you feel at the moment for all decision making. And that’s not always optimal.
For some set of decisions you can save time and emotional energy, and reduce risks, by not waiting to see how you react. Instead, you decide your course of action ahead of time.
Why Decide?
Why would anyone’s on-the-spot decisions be any different from those made ahead of time? Because our tendency is to focus only on marginal costs at the moment. Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen raised an issue with this approach as it relates to decision making in the July 2010 issue of HBR.
Unconsciously, we often employ the marginal cost doctrine in our personal lives where we choose between right and wrong. A voice in our head says, “Look, I know that as a general rule, more people shouldn’t do this. But in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK.” The marginal cost of doing something wrong “just this once” always seems alluringly low.
What Decisions?
What is that set of decisions? That’s for you to decide (pun intended). A business owner might pay for all licenses and fees, even if some won’t be monitored. A salesperson might be honest about stock, even when it doesn’t risk a deal. A carpenter might put away her tools, even though she’ll need them the next day. It’s often those things you value and associate with a particular behavior, but are prone to rationalization under duress or extenuating circumstances.
A Personal Example
My wife and I have decided we will not spend one-on-one time with any non-relative of the opposite gender. Why, because we don’t trust each other? No, we trust each other very much. Is it because we don’t trust our friends or colleagues? No, we work with many splendid people and have terrific friends.
We do it because we don’t want to make a judgment call about a friend or colleague in a moment. We never ask ourselves questions such as, “Is this appropriate?”, “Do I trust this person?”, or “Could this be misinterpreted?”
For us there is no call to make – the decision is quick and emotionally neutral. It’s not a model for everyone (we have friends that think we’re crazy), but it works for us. (And we’re not completely insane — we’re mimicking behavior from Larry and Marj, our marriage mentors, who for 40+ years have had the great marriage we aspire to have.)
What Could Go Wrong?
If you defer each decision until the last moment, you are placing the burden on yourself to answer whether your situation is an extenuating circumstance. And in that moment, the heart can do a superb job of convincing the head that, of course, it is. Unfortunately, it may not lead to the long-term outcome you had in mind when you plotted your future. You might find out a little too late that the sunk costs mattered after all.
You Got This!
This will be tougher than you imagine. Tempting exceptions will appear for any choice you make ahead of time. Start with something of less difficulty and train yourself. Make your decision now and follow through with that choice for the next three months.
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