Decision paralysis

[Wiaaam]

Good morning everyone!
I am struggling a lot with decision paralysis, I am reading articles about it since a few months now and I was wondering if any of you were also dealing with this, had find ways to cope with it or had good resources to share
I am trying time blocking and I am writing down my decision criteria. It looks promising but it doesn't help that much when there are too much choices that fit the criteria or when I have so many criteria that nothing fits . I think it is a lot of practice, and with time I will manage to do it, but as of now it is very hard so if anyone has good advise, I am all ears

 

[graoumia]

Good morning everyone!
I am struggling a lot with decision paralysis, I am reading articles about it since a few months now and I was wondering if any of you were also dealing with this, had find ways to cope with it or had good resources to share
I am trying time blocking and I am writing down my decision criteria. It looks promising but it doesn't help that much when there are too much choices that fit the criteria or when I have so many criteria that nothing fits . I think it is a lot of practice, and with time I will manage to do it, but as of now it is very hard so if anyone has good advise, I am all ears

I don't really have this issue, but when i cannot decide, i write the pro and the cons, sometimes it helps. But i am sure you will get good advices here

 

[Wiaaam]

I don't really have this issue, but when i cannot decide, i write the pro and the cons, sometimes it helps. But i am sure you will get good advices here

Thank you! That seems like a good thing that I could add when I still have too many choices

 

[vulture1930]

Hallo

I don't really have the issue either in my daily life, but... I do feel like I have seen both extremes in me, it depends on how confident I feel at the time I'd say. When I feel good, I feel like I can take on the world and even make the worst decision work in my favor - When I feel like crap, the opposite happens and I feel like I have to rely on making the best choice rather than relying on myself to make it work anyways. At other times, I simply don't care enough and just wing it.

It's a tricky topic, as it also depends heavily on how important the decision is and how flexible the problem allows you to be.

For example, if it is an important choice that is not easily reversible, such as giving up your current job and changing fields, the decision holds a lot of weight and you need to take your time for that.
If it is more flexible, such as planning out what to do on your holiday trip in Spain - Well, you can always figure that out on the fly.

It's good that you are working on it. I don't really have any solid advice for you as I feel like it's a deep personal problem and a generic answer would not be right. What I will say is that it might be worth exploring in your mind what would happen if you made "the wrong decision", you'll often see that even "the worst decision" can be salvaged and it might lower the weight on your shoulders a bit. Good luck!

 

[Wiaaam]

@vulture1930 Yes it is a tricky topic indeed and it will be different for everyone, I agree. I am mostly looking for ideas so that I can see what works or not for me
For instance, some articles that I read online advised on throwing dices or delegating decisions to someone else, but I am very much against this as I still want to take responsibility for my decisions and know why I chose to do this or that.
Exploring my mind to see what could happen if I take the wrong decision is a very good advice, it would allow me to put things more into perspective (which is also something not easy for me to do, and that would allow me to take a step back and reflect more). Thank you for the advice! I am adding this to my "toolkit"

 

[Mamatigerj]

One piece of advice i received was, when faced with multiple options to simply compare them 1-to-1. For example, if i have 5 possibilities: i compare #1 & #2; i choose 2 over 1. Next i compare 2 to 3; i still prefer 2, so i compare 2 to 4. 4 wins this time, so now my final choice is between 4 & 5. (I hope that made sense.)
It helps, because i am only ever having to choose between 2 things.

 

[Wiaaam]

@Mamatigerj Yes I see what you mean, it is like a choice bracket! That is a good advice, thank you!

 

[NightWolf714]

I struggle with this too sometimes.

I definitely do @Mamatigerj approach sometimes. For example, if my husband is asking what I feel like for dinner, he'll often just ask out of two items. And then we can either go with it or he'll compare my choice to another item if I'm only so-so about my chosen answer.

The other thing that might help is to see what items you can just have a default answer too. Like for breakfast, maybe you pick a standard item to have. Basically removing a choice and storing that energy for something else.

Of course, any sort of stress relief and resting techniques will also help with this. If you struggle with anxiety in general, this is kinda one outlet of that. So the more you feel rested and relaxed, the easier this can be.