How to Decide summary

I knew that was going to happen! Of course they didn’t win! It’s totally obvious – I can’t believe I didn’t see it before! Have you ever found yourself saying something like this? Or maybe a friend seems to have a particular knack for appearing correct after a decision plays out. 

It’s easy to revise our knowledge of the recent past once we know an outcome. We become retroactively omniscient. Or we think someone else has a canny ability to predict the future with remarkable accuracy. But this is all misleading. When it comes to learning from our decisions, misremembering the facts after the outcome only confuses us on how we made the decision in the first place.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. If you’re like most people, at some point your decisions have led to moments of wishful thinking, even regret. If only things had turned out differently. If only my interview hadn’t been so early in the morning. If only I’d arrived before they ran out of blueberry scones. 

To be clear, it’s impossible to change the past. Once it’s done, it’s done. But we need to look at the past to understand how we’ve made decisions and to continue honing our decision-making skills. We also can’t judge a single outcome as the only unpreventable possibility. Instead, we need to examine multiple decisions and the multiple results they can lead to.

You’ve just come back to your waterfront Miami apartment to find a job offer in your inbox. It’s your dream job at a company you never thought you’d get to work at. But there’s one catch: it’s in Boston, Massachusetts. Everything seemed great except that you hate the cold, and you’ve spent the better part of your adult life avoiding New England weather at all costs. 

Will you remain in Miami, or will you ship out to Boston? It seems cruel to be burdened with such a major life decision, but if you break it down into six manageable steps, you can arrive at a choice that best suits your values and goals. 

Let’s say your car breaks down in the middle of a cross-country road trip. It’s towed to a local mechanic, and after letting her take a look, you ask for the prognosis. When will it be ready? She replies, “Well, more likely than not, by the middle of next week.” That sounds promising, but how certain is it? 

One person might take it to mean the mechanic is definitely going to repair it by Wednesday morning. Someone else could interpret it as overly optimistic and think it might take a few weeks. 

Think of a friend who’s always late. He’s always hitting traffic at the wrong time. No matter what, he’s plagued by red lights and infuriatingly slow drivers. From his perspective, it’s always bad luck. But from your perspective, there’s more in his control than he’s appreciating. Does this mean that you know everything, and he knows nothing? No! From outside his perspective, it’s easier to see the patterns he’s missing. 

To ensure that you’re not that friend, you’ll have to improve your pattern-recognition skills. One way to do that is to familiarize yourself with two perspectives: the outside view and the inside view.

One hundred and fifty minutes. That’s how long the average person spends deciding what to eat each week. 

Ninety to 115 minutes per week deciding what to wear.

Close your eyes and visualize yourself in the future. It’s a lovely vision. You’re successful. You’re happy. You’ve achieved your most daunting goals. 

Now open your eyes. Did it work? Are you there? Did anything change? 

A friend asks whether you like Charlie Chaplin films, but before you answer, she blurts, “I can’t stand them. So boring! Anyone who likes them must be boring, too.” 

If you don’t have a strong opinion of Chaplin’s work, you’d probably respond with some indifferent agreement. But what if you were a huge Chaplin buff? Your shelves are lined with Charlie Chaplin paraphernalia, including a huge Modern Times poster on the wall. Perhaps your passion for slapstick silent films exceeds your aversion to conflict. But if you’re like most people, you’d at least try to play down your obsession to be a little less at odds with your friend’s scathing review.