3 Ways to Improve Your Decision Making

To get better at making decisions, you have to improve your ability to make predictions (how different choices change the likelihood of different outcomes) and your judgment (how desirable each of those outcomes is). While there are countless ways to work on these two skills, there are three simple rules that can help the most. First, be less certain. We’re all more confident about each step of the decision-making process than we ought to be. What else would you think about if you were less sure that A would cause B, or that B is preferable to C? Second, always ask yourself ask “How often does that typically happen?” If you think outcome B is preferable to outcome C, you might ask: How often has that historically been the case? Third, brush up on your understanding of probability. Research has shown that even basic training in probability makes people better forecasters and helps them avoid certain cognitive biases.