#3: Ready-Made Decisions
Quick decisions (not choices) for future events.
We want to make decisions, not choices.
“Decisions are different from choices. If you casually select an option from a range of alternatives, you’ve made a choice. If you react without thinking, you’ve made an unconscious choice. But neither of these is the same as a decision. A decision is a choice that involves conscious thought”.1
This distinction between the two words is important, a definitional difference worth remembering.
Our quick, intuitive views hinder clearer thinking because they provide ready-made answers to problems, as pointed out by Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and psychologist.2
So, ready-made answers are ready-made CHOICES. And we don’t want choices. What we want are ready-made DECISIONS. This is where the use of pre-decisions and rules comes in.
Pre-decisions are proactive choices made to guide future behavior in moments where we might make a poor choice. Rules are the same, but have the benefit that “people typically don’t argue with your personal rules. They just accept them as features of who you are. People question decisions, but they respect rules'".3 So, a rule is a like how to communicate your decision to another person.
So, the skill, then, is to anticipate future events that could benefit from some pre-decisions or rules. When those future events come, we’ll be able to decide quickly and well.
Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking (HarperCollins, 2023), p. 118.
Shane Parrish, "Putting Your Intuition on Ice with Daniel Kahneman," The Knowledge Project Podcast, Episode #68.
Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking (HarperCollins, 2023), p. 105.