Posts Tagged ‘decision’

Stop Dithering: Become A Better Decision-Maker

Ever encountered a project where only one decision needs to be made before you can finish the project? It may only take you a few hours to finish the project once that decision is made, but invariably, it’s the decision that takes forever to make. It’s because decision-making is as much a skill as riding a bike: it’s something that you learn and improve on as you practice.

I think… » Continue

March 25 2008 | By Thursday | Tagged: advice, cost, decision | 8 comments»

Hit the Shuffle Button

Same Old, Same Old?

Do you find yourself doing the same things day in and day out? To use a metaphor, are you listening the the same songs of life every day? If so, why not hit the shuffle button on your life and let a new tune rev up your day, your creativity, and your energy!

I like how the shuffle button queues up a song that I wouldn’t normally… » Continue

July 24 2007 | By K. | Tagged: creative, decision, energy, life | 8 comments»

Lead, Follow, and Get Out of the Way

Leadership seems to be on everyone’s minds one these days. Educators talk about “teaching leadership”, religious and charitable organizations host “leadership development” programs , businesses invest heavily in “leadership training”. But what is leadership, exactly? And how do we practice it?

Leadership is about bringing out and mobilizing the best in the people around you. It’s about helping a group of people work
together towards a shared goal or set… » Continue

July 10 2007 | By Dustin | Tagged: Communication, confidence, decision, leadership, project | 20 comments»

Ultimate Pros and Cons Excel Workbook

Back in November, I posted an Excel spreadsheet that I sometimes use for making simple decisions. Though pretty basic, it always worked well for me.

Well, Lucy over at lucylou.info took the idea and expanded on it, making a pretty cool workbook that she calls, the Ultimate Pros and Cons Excel Workbook:

But what if you want something with a few more features? I’m actually trying to make… » Continue

January 16 2007 | By Tony | Tagged: decision, excel, software, worksheet | 1 comment»

New Year’s Resolutions and Deficit Thinking

As we approach the New Year, many of you may be starting to consider one or more New Year’s resolutions. Okay, you’ve done it before—probably many, many times—and the results have not been spectacular in terms of success. In fact, most of your past resolutions have lasted maybe a week or two. Don’t despair. Exactly the same thing happens to most people, and for the same reason: the deadly habit… » Continue

December 25 2006 | By Adrian | Tagged: achievement, decifit, decision, thinking, work, worrying | 10 comments»

10 reasons people make stupid decisions

The blog Bad Analysis shares their count down on why would people insist to make bad decision even they are clearly wrong. It is good read to understand them and avoid them (the reasons and people) at all cost:

We’ve come this far… (sunk cost bias)
Me me me! (egocentric bias)
That just proves my point. (confirmation bias)
That’s easy. (overconfidence)
I’m #1! I’m #1! (dysfunctional competition)
Mine mine mine! (endowment effect)
Watch out for sharks. (availability

» Continue

October 6 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: decision | 2 comments»

Make Decisions in Advance

I found an old article called Make Decisions in Advance from Productive Strategies. I blog it because i like it a lot.

No matter if you are deciding which restaurant to go for dinner, or which implementation is better for your project - you spend your time on those decision making cycle. The article suggests to document all those findings, or even the actual decision before the decision making point… » Continue

September 12 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: decision, making | 1 comment»

Communication, Thought, and Time

Over at Slow Leadership, this week has been all about using your time. I don’t set out to give each week’s postings a single theme, but sometimes it happens that way.

It began with considering the relationship between time, action and thought in a posting I called Taking Your Time. Some people claim that jumping into actions and decisions without stopping to think is the right thing… » Continue

August 28 2006 | By Adrian | Tagged: Communication, concentration, decision, effectiveness, knowledge, leadership, learning, Management, misperception, performance, slow-leadership, thinking, thought, thoughts, time, timemanagement, work-life | 1 comment»

“Hamburger Management”

A leader forced to utilize “hamburger management” is like a cordon bleu chef told to work as a short-order cook and produce nothing but hamburgers with french fries every day. Any organization that uses this approach is like a diner who eats nothing else. The first becomes bored, frustrated and disillusioned; the second becomes sick rather quickly.

Hamburger management is any form of leadership or management technique that utilizes only a… » Continue

July 9 2006 | By Adrian | Tagged: civilized-work, creativity, decision, leadership, managememt, Management, manager, organization, overwork, performance, prioritization, time, timemanagement, work, work-life, workflow, workstyle | 4 comments»

‘Sleeping on it’ best for complex decisions

A research has suggested that complex decisions are best to work out with your unconscious mind. Gaia Vince at NewScientist.com has noted that the research at University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands has showed too much thinking of a complex item will lead to wrong choice. It is good to sleep on it so your unconscious mind can weigh the pros and cons:

… “We found that when the choice was… » Continue

February 17 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: conscious, decision | no comments»

Coaching Persistence

“Anything worth having is worth working for. Persistence is often the defining quality between those who fail and those who succeed.”
—On Ho‘omau, the Hawaiian value of persistence and perseverance, in Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawaii’s Universal Values to the Art of Business

Persistence is one of those work qualities that we universally value in business. We believe that the obstacles which test us can actually make us stronger. However I have… » Continue

January 26 2006 | By Rosa | Tagged: decision, Management, persistence | 4 comments»

Spreadsheet to help decision-making

Dwayne Melancon has developed a spreadsheet multi-choice, multi-factor decision. This is a spreadsheet he has developed ten years ago which helped his hiring decision. Now he have updated and tweaked it to suit general selection task for modern world. This is an example on how to use this spreadsheet:

… The spreadsheet contains tabs with three different styles of selection matrices. Each one has different “features” so figure out which one… » Continue

December 19 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: decision, Management, software, tool | no comments»

Putting Your Future on Hold

People put their own futures on hold all the time. How to they do it? By setting conditions that have to be met before they can move on. » Continue

December 12 2005 | By Adrian | Tagged: action, article, career, decision, mission, motivation, procrastination, progress | 2 comments»

How Useful Is the Pareto Principle?

Before you decide the Pareto Principle is true and can be used to guide your actions, I want to ask two important questions. Can you identify which actions make up the useful 20%? And can you do so in advance? And does this useful 20% always contain more or less the same actions? » Continue

October 31 2005 | By Adrian | Tagged: action, business, customer, decision, learning, Management, organization, Pareto_Principle, Productivity, work, work-life | 13 comments»

Most of us overrate our own abilities

There are dangers if we overrate our own abilities. For instance, one overrates his/her driving ability (or/and car capability) by cutting into corner way too fast, the car goes under-steer and crashes. Medical News Today has a good article on talking about overrating our abilities can have serious consequences. In the article, one of the studies by Dunning showed that:

… “People tend to believe their personal risk of becoming ill… » Continue

October 9 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: ability, decision, evaluation | no comments»