How To Make Better Decisions

Many years ago, I worked with a person who could not make decisions. Neither big nor small decisions. That indecisiveness paralyzed our business in many ways.

Unfortunately, the book, Decide: Work Smarter, Reduce Your Stress, and Lead by Example, had not been published. Had it, I would have shared it with my co-worker.

Decide, published this past February, teaches readers how to make better decisions based on the real results they want to experience.

The author, Steve McClatchy, explains how to use the two forms of human motivation -- Gain, or Prevent Pain, to make more effective decisions. For example, he demonstrates how inserting a Gain task in the middle of a Prevent Pain day can give you the energy you need to move forward and make the Prevent Pain tasks take less time through motivation.

Deeper into the book, you'll be reminded about not only the problems with procrastination, but also about the benefits of procrastination, and, if you are a procrastinator, how you can make better use of those benefits.

I particularly found useful the chapter on Managing Interruptions. McClatchy explains that a typical day for a worker interruptions rob us of valuable think time and time needed to make effective decisions:

Interruptions by things that aren't important and recovery time - 28%
Productive content creation, including writing emails - 25%
Meetings (in person, phone, video, online) - 20%
Searching through content: web, paperwork, and digital communications - 15%
Thinking and reflecting - 12%

McClatchy is a speaker, trainer, consultant, writer, and entrepreneur. He is the owner and Founder of Alleer Training & Consulting, a firm focused on helping companies and individuals improve performance and achieve maximum results. Decide is his first book.

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