This one is recycled from 2009, but it’s just as relevant today as it was then.
We’ve pretty much all been hit hard these last few months. If you have more time on your hands due to slower business or if you’re worried about spending any money whatsoever with times so tight, you’re not alone. But is it possible that you are over-scrutinizing your decisions to keep costs contained? Are you second-guessing yourself after having lost some faith in your abilities because of the economy?
Any one of these alone could cause a mild case, but all taken together could lead to a major bout of ANALYSIS PARALYSIS!
What is it? It is when you spend extra minutes, hours and days, even longer, making decisions that you used to be able to make almost instantaneously.
Analysis Paralysis, in the end, is simply a subset of another affliction… PROCRASTINATION.
Why are you mired in indecision? Do you think that if you spend lots of time analyzing a particular decision, your end result will be better than if you either trusted your first instincts or your own wealth of experience? That if you can “show all of your work” you might be able to rationalize to your superiors why you are taking a long time in deciding? That “things might get better” while you are making up your mind and the decision will be easier or more advantageous to you? There are a thousand reasons (excuses, really) for taking too long in making decisions. In the end, though, that is what they are… excuses.
I’ve always been of the mind that a bad decision is better than no decision.
You can always fix a bad decision; at least some action takes place. No decision just puts you at the mercy of a changeable and changing world, leaving you to be buffeted by the winds of chance. It’s only those who are able to make the necessary decisions and changes who are able to continue to move forward.
Go ahead, take charge of your own destiny! Be decisive, make some good decisions. Trust your gut.
You know what you need to do, so go and DO IT RIGHT NOW!
There, doesn’t that feel better?
(For more information on how to avoid analysis paralysis, check out Malcom Gladwell’s book: http://www.gladwell.com/blink/index.html).
