By Khadija Kapacee, Managing Director

A couple of weeks ago, a few of the EDIT team headed over to Altitude X hosted by our clients Peak. The AI and commercial decision making festival was really inspiring and got us all thinking more about how our lives are defined by the ability to make good decisions.

We all have more choices than we have ever had before – what to watch, where to shop, how to travel, where to visit and so on. And more choice, means more decisions. Some of the decisions we need to make are fairly insignificant, making little meaningful difference to our lives. But when it comes to our business and our careers, some decisions have a much bigger impact on not just ourselves, but the people around us, meaning good decision making skills are vital.

So it got me thinking about decision making and researching into some of the simple things we can all do to improve our decision making skills and be more conscious about the impact of the decisions we make:

Having a clear purpose and vision
To move a business or your own career forward, decisions are vital. And these decisions are so much easier if you are clear on who you are, why you’re here and where you are heading. Having clarity and focus, allows you to make decisions that are right for you and your ambitions and goals.

Learning to let go
For any business to grow, one of the most challenging aspects is learning to let go and delegating routine decision making. A fear of losing control and mistakes being made can be very difficult to overcome. But over time, this inability to let others make decisions will become a bottle neck and slow down not only the decision making process, but ultimately the growth of the business.

Focus on the present
We can often get overwhelmed with the big picture trying to see how our decisions will affect the future. The process of reaching a decision becomes mentally draining because you’re trying to see every step along every outcome and we end up overthinking and second guessing every scenario. It’s better to save that energy for the task at hand, and simply try and make the best decision possible with the information you have now.

Think black and white
There are times when we have more choices than we need. Excess of anything can overwhelm us. In this case, use your decision making skills to judge your options by putting pen to paper and weighing out the pros and cons, which will quicken the process and discount less optimal options.

Set a deadline
Decision making take us up a lot of time, much of it is used ineffectively so the idea behind this tip is to force actions through a self imposed deadline. It’s simple enough to incorporate and the time limit forces you to quickly assess the options while quickly coming to a decision.