Life can be described as follows:

Choose between this… this… and this.
Live consequences
Repeat Until you die

You work hard… you get the promotion or you earn a lot of money but you have to sacrifice time off or time with your family. You study hard at university you get your A+ but as a consequence you might put aside your relationship resulting in its degradation.

Life is like that. You are faced with a decision with a limited amount of options. With every option you choose, you will get benefits but you also get consequences. This makes decision making very important since our life takes shape depending on what decision we make. This leads us to the million dollar question.

How do you make the right choices in life?

Please allow me to suggest my brain dead simple method that I use when I am faced with a decision which is bigger than me. All it takes is a white blank sheet of paper, a pen and a clean desk. I split the paper into a series of columns depending on how many options I have available. After I list all the options at the top, one per column, I split the paper into two rows: in the top most row I list the pro and in the bottom row I write down the cons.

While doing this exercise you have to take care that you list everything down. Make sure that you think hard enough to see all the effects of the corresponding option. Don’t be biased and take some effects for granted. Be open minded and list every effect down. If you are biased in your decisions this will have severe effects on your future, since you might take the wrong decision.

I know that the decision making system that I use is very simple. But after all you need something simple, something that does not make you think since you are already overloaded with the decision that you are about to take. However, I would like to hear how you go about making decisions.