Decide fast, or decide carefully?
Speed wins most decisions. A few are worth all the time you can give them.
Mental models
Bias for action
Waiting is a decision too.
Most decisions can be undone, so make them quickly. Waiting for perfect information is also a decision, usually a slow one.
- Right when
- When the decision is cheap to undo. Trying is faster than debating, and the result teaches you more than the meeting would.
- For example
- A café can’t choose between two new sandwiches. Instead of a month of discussion, it puts both on the menu for a week. By Sunday, sales have decided.
- Wrong when
- When the quick try turns out to be a promise you can’t take back.
Mental models
Measure twice, cut once
Some cuts can’t be undone.
A tailor checks twice because a cut can’t be undone. Slow down only for the few decisions you can’t take back.
- Right when
- When the decision is hard or impossible to reverse: a big hire, a long lease, a factory, a partner.
- For example
- A five-year lease at ₹2 lakh a month commits ₹1.2 crore. A week spent checking the location costs almost nothing next to that.
- Wrong when
- When every small choice gets treated like a lease, and nothing ever gets decided.
What decides it
Can you undo it cheaply?
Jeff Bezos split Amazon’s decisions into one-way doors and two-way doors. Walk through a two-way door quickly, because you can always come back. Slow down only at the one-way doors.
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