I want explore the process of making decisions.  To start, and make sure we are all on the same page,  I am refering to a conclusion or recommendation reached after consideration.

I believe decision making (outside of the emotional decisions) can be a relatively simple process centered around 3 simple considerations.

Decision Analysis

For routine decisions like should I eat now, is it time for bed, time to exercise, and so, on the considerations usually involve feelings – am I hungry, am I tired, and so on.

For more complex decisions, generally those that go beyond should I do this or should I do that, the best place to start is by defining the key attributes that will inflence the decision.

Generic Considerations

Risk – what are the bad things that could happen, how likely are they to occur and if one does happen how impactful will it be.  The focus of this consideration should be to identify the things with a medium to likely potential of occurring and a medium to high impact if they do.

Then the question is, what decision integrates best with the identified risks (that is mitigating or even removing risks)

Benefit – This is all about motivation.  The conclusion or recommendation arising from the decision basically represents  analysis of the benefit.  This generally is the basic tenament of whether to do a thing or not.  If there is a benefit, do it and if not don’t. (and of course all places in between).

Effort –  Simply put, what will it take to achieve the result of the conclusion or recommendation.  Weighing the benefit, risk and effort results ultimately drive to the best decision.