Published on 12, July, 2020
I think I only have one decision making process. I noticed years ago that there seems to be no difference in how I decide what to have for dinner and how I make a huge life changing decision like where to move house to for example. Which means I can be relatively fast on the big decisions, although I do my due diligence and take days or weeks to be sure, but really I have probably already made the decision. Or not if it is a dithery one, but I also feel that way over some food choices! If none of the options are good then it is so hard. But i didn't really want to discuss menu problems so much as the underlying issue.
I think this is one reason why we like routines and having the same food all the time - to save having to decide every time we eat! Not all of us, I'm sure there are other reasons, but I have heard it somewhere.
One reason might be that all decisions seem equally important to me. If it really doesn't matter then it is not worth spending too long over and maybe to most people most decisions are in that category. But I find that hard. Taking it to extremes I have to get very low importance to find an example of a not important decision, like playing wordle I always have my starting word but then if there were two equally good (or bad) options for the next word i don't dither too long as it totally doesn't matter.
But I have spent hours today deciding which yarn to use for my next crochet project. It is a reason I have not done much crochet in recent years, because this decision making process can be so taxing. This is the same reason I cannot tidy up the messy house which upsets my husband. Each thing requires a decision, or rather many! Do i keep or not? If I keep it where does it go? Is there room for it there? No, then what do it do with it?! Or if I don't keep it but it is not actual rubbish then how to dispose of it? (landfill is bad)
Why d I have to get everything right? What is the consequence of getting one of these decisions wrong? I end up eating a meal I don't feel in the mood for? Big deal! (Although that was worse with eating out if there was nothing I even like). But then the crochet - it does take me a long time so I don't really want to spend hours making something i then don't love and use or have to unpick. But the tidying - really the consequences are probably worse for failing to do it than they are for getting it wrong. I already can't find lots of things! So if I tidy up I am more likely to improve that than disimprove it.
This is too long and rambling and I think I have lost the point, if there was one. Maybe the point was partly that I think this is something at least some of you can relate to so i feel less alone and frustrated in world where it seems most people can just do this stuff without it twisting their brains into a painful pretzel! Or maybe it's just me... but surely not?
I think the consequences thing is relevant. I need to consider that. It might help make some decisions easier if they don't have bad consequences. But it doesn't help if they do actually matter...
Hi! I can relate to this a lot! And I love routine for the same reason! I am terrible at taking decisions, though I do think that some decisions I find even harder than others (like picking between different job offers), but I find food choices on a day/day basis absolutely agonising too as well as other choices so I tend to stick to strict routines (not conciously but I always gravitate towards these) and I hate when they are broken. I think one of the reasons taking decisions is so hard is because I think about lots of pros and cons and possible consequences and outcomes etc - I've realised that making decisions is particularly hard when the different options are quite similarly rated (ie they are all good options or all not so good etc). Because you can usually rationalise any of the options - it happened to me a lot that I would talk to someone and then reason strongly for one choice and they would say well clearly you are set on this choice but then I realised I could just as easily have rationalised/argued for another option and if I then did so with someone else I would get the same response. I think the issue is that I overthink it so much that the instinct is gone. So I always have to smile when people try to give decision making advice and tell me to think of pros and cons - I actually have the opposite issue that I think too much about it- What does help me though is if I very quickly write down all the pros and cons for each of my options and then intuitively give each pro or con a rating from 0 to 100, 0 being not important and 100 being lifechangingly important- I do this quite quickly (usually just on my phone when walking). I then tally up the score for the pros for each option and the cons for each option and then substract the cons from the pros so that each option has a score. This has helped me in the past to differentiate between options- though sometimes they all score similarly but I've sometimes been surprised by the results and I think the good thing about this technique is that I do it quite spontaneously and I give each point a weighing and it still feels like I am acknowledging all those 100000s of thoughts/pros/cons that are going through my head...
I love your expression of "twisting the brain into a prezel" - I do that a lot too so you are not alone and I can emphasise with how exhausting it can be. I am actually in a phase of breaking free from my rigid food routine (as it is damaging my health- I have lived of eggs, wholegrain rolls, carrot and apples for the past 6 months. pretty much same brand for everything too)- this results in so many options though and decisions and it is agonising. For me the fear with food is also that it will upset my digestion/ make me feel ill (as I have a lot of digestive issues), plus I also worry about loosing weight (so anxious about portion sizes etc) etc etc.it's complicated... and there are so many variables and options... I don't know how people deal with these choices on a day to day basis with no apparent distress...
I don't know- I also haven't really figured out a way to deal with this ... especially as for day to day choices I cannot really go around writing lists of pros and cons and rating them... I have tried to just be intuitive and go with the first thing that pops into my head now that I am expanding my diet but that is also not always the best.... It's so hard ...
But at least we are not alone :) Best,
Ann
I don't even love routine (ADHD!) but I do find it useful to have some so I don't have to decide so much.
I think what makes a decision hardest is not so much how important it is as whether there is an obvious answer, as you said. It might be nicer choosing between two equally good things than two equally bad ones, but it is so much easier to choose between a good thing and a bad thing! If they are evenly balanced, the two good things choice can be almost as difficult as the two bad things once and thus not entirely enjoyable even though either outcome would be positive. What makes it even worse though is if there are unknown variables so one cannot even truly assess how good or bad each option would be. I guess a job offer would like that as there are always unknowns.
Ann :) said:I think one of the reasons taking decisions is so hard is because I think about lots of pros and cons and possible consequences and outcomes etc
Yes! My husband says I always overcomplicate things. I say it is not me doing it, the complications are inherently there, I am just noticing them and pointing them out. I think if one had an instinctive reaction, favouring one option or another, one should note that and bear it in mind as a factor, but not necessarily go with it unless one had a good track record of one's instinct being reliable. I think such feelings are the right brain, whereas the analysing is left brain (or whatever the current theory is, those terms are just shorthand) but a person might be better at one or the other so unless one knows which one is better at then it seems good to use both. But if one doesn't even have a feeling about it then logic is the only recourse.
We have done a thing like your number list when making family decisions (like if husband and I are on holiday with my Dad and we are deciding what to do on a day for example) where we each rate the options out of ten and then combine scores. So if I want to cycle 10, go to the beach 5 and go to a museum 7 while husband wants to cycle 0, go to the beach 7 and the museum 5 we would be tied but it wouldn't be cycling. But add in Dad and if he wants the beach 10, the museum 6 and cycling 2 it would be the beach. Unless it rained... Our holidays are fun! Haha. Not sure i could mark out of 100, that is too nuanced and i would end up vacillating over whether a thing was 57 or 58... It's good that you can do the numbers so readily!
My Dad has diet issues too, it can be complicated, and we try to be healthy, but your issues sound more difficult to break out from. I would get bored on such a restricted diet (ADHD to the rescue! Haha). I have the same breakfast and the same lunch but different to breakfast, and I sometimes get bored of my lunch as it is a bit dull. For dinner we have a set of meals we pick between, depending on what is in stock, what is fresh, what husband (the cook) can be bothered to do and lastly how we feel.
Yes, nice to know we are not alone, though not a club I would recommend! :)