Making Decisions: It Doesn’t Have To Be So Complicated

Kerch McConlogue, CPCC, PCC
kerch@mapthefuture.com
HandOut

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: in purpose, in present moment, and non-judgmentally. This kind of attention nurtures greater awareness, clarity, and acceptance of the present-moment reality.

-- Jon Kabat-Zinn
Full Catastrophe Living

Make up your mind. Choose. Resolve this. Solve it. Pick one. Today!

The basic steps to decision making are these (from the website Study Guides and Strategies on line at www.studygs.net/problem/index.htm)

define the problem,
collect necessary information,
develop options,
The clean decide goes here.
devise a plan,
execute it and
follow-up.

So if that’s all it takes, what gets in the way of the “clean decide?”

People with ADHD have trouble because they:

have so many ideas
get distracted
have trouble finishing the thought
are not sure it’s right

What gets in the way:

Not enough information. This is the easiest
Curse of the win/win

Negotiating is not deciding

What if you don't know that you've decided?

You keep waiting for something to happen and so you're stuck with what you get
If that continues, you feel powerless.
When you feel powerless you forget what you know.

Deciding from a position of fear
Too much information

Values:

Having a complicated priority system is difficult to use. But priorities are a lot like values.

Values are intangible. You can't hold them in your hand. Money is not a value. But what you can do with the money might be. Money can buy fun, peace of mind. Travel is not a value. Gardening is not a value. But adventure, learning and nature might be. What must you have in your life?

How much do you know about your own values? What are they? Which values do you neglect? How do you know? What really makes you angry? Chances are there’s something going against a value of yours.

Making decisions based on your top values will ALWAYS lead to a fulfilling decision. Setting your priorities around your values will make it easier to determine what really is most important.

Short list of priorities:

If the list of values guides the big questions of your life, what is your short list of priorities to get you through the day? Here’s my list:

Is there blood? Flowing blood must be stopped.
People who want to give me money take priority over everything else.
Everything else is negotiable

How to decide:

Recognize what you need.
What structure can you build to get that?

What are the possibilities
Problems with rules

Just do it.

Gut decisions and the value of a blink.
Trust the one clear thought in the morning.

Strengthen the decision:

Decide in line with values
Connect to your goal
Consider consequences:

What do you give up
To what do you commit

Get help when you need it
Know when to back off
Tell someone

The master list: What it does for you, how it confuses you.

Having all your projects or tasks listed on a master list is key in keeping track and in not having to decide more than once.

If small decisions are easier to make than big ones, make the items on your Today ToDo specific and manageable.

Flexibility is critical in the development of options. If you don't have a list of options, it’s much harder to choose one.

Often priority levels seem to be chosen arbitrarily and neglect the importance of situational opportunities, e.g. Five minutes in the car might not be the time or place to do a load of laundry no matter how important clean underwear is.