You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Torello comments on Open Thread, May 19 - 25, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: somnicule 19 May 2014 04:49AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (289)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Torello 21 May 2014 10:09:32PM 2 points [-]

If you're not familiar with the ideas read "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz or watch a talk about it.

Other ideas:

give yourself a very short deadline for most decisions (most decisions are trivial); i.e. I will make this decision in the next two minutes and then I will stick with it. For long-term life decisions, maybe not so much.

Flip a coin. This is a good way to expose your gut feelings. A pros and cons type of weighting the options allows you to weigh lots of factors. Flipping a coin produces fewer reactions (in my experience): "Shoot, I really wish i had the other option (good information), or "I don't feel to strongly about the outcome (good information), or "I'm content with this flip" (good information).