Not really what the topic is about, but I think it's always important to remember that there is a countering factor if the timescale is long enough (years) - your cognitive abilities will decrease with age, so decisions made earlier may benefit from this.
I imagine that there might be some age at which your (always-increasing, but perhaps subject to diminishing returns) experience and your (always-decreasing, after around 20 or 25) cognitive ability cancel, resulting in a peak in decision-making ability ceteris paribus.
I intend for them to increase linearly :p
I currently face a pretty major life decision. After some careful analysis, I've concluded that my final decision depends on the answers from some queries that I have made, but whose answers I won't receive for days or perhaps weeks.
In the meantime, I've had great difficulty not obsessing over the pending decision. It warps my priorities and kills my motivation; I'm doing less, with less vigor, and enjoying it less. I've noticed, in the past, that compulsion to worry correlates tightly with depressed mood; given what I know about the mind, I assume that each can cause the other.
In general, this connection seems to make changing one's mind painful, and probably conditions people to hold their ideas with certainty, rather than uncertainty. As such, ways to stave it off should be of major use to this community...
I know some things to do to stave off a depressed mood (e.g. get exercise, eat well, talk to friends, achieve small-but-satisfying goals). I don't know any ways to avoid the compulsion to worry about an uncertain future decision, except, possibly, to notice the worrying and tell myself, verbally, that uncertainty is ok. Which brings me to my
Question: Does anyone know any methods for avoiding fruitless worrying over properly-uncertain facts or actions?