G8 Thoughts / Deciding

Decisions you can undo deserve far less agonising than the rest

Sorting choices by how reversible they are is the single cheapest improvement available to most people's decision making.

Some choices can be walked back at small cost. You buy the kettle, you dislike it, you return it or live with a slightly disappointing kettle for two years. Others cannot: you sell the house, you take the job in another city, you tell someone what you really think of them. The remarkable thing is how little our effort tracks the difference. People will spend a fortnight comparing kettles and an afternoon deciding whether to move, partly because the kettle question is comfortable and finite while the other one is not.

The sorting question is simple: if this turns out badly, what does undoing it cost me. If the answer is a few dollars and a trip back to the shop, decide quickly and stop reading reviews. The information you would gain from another hour of research is worth less than the hour. If the answer is that undoing it is impossible or ruinous, then slowness is not indecision, it is the appropriate response to the shape of the problem, and you should resist anyone framing your care as dithering. The same fortnight spent on the kettle would have been well spent here, and the only thing that changed is which question was comfortable to sit with.

There is a trap in the middle, which is choices that look reversible and are not. Taking on a small commitment that grows, or a purchase that comes with a contract, or a conversation you cannot unsay. Before filing something as easily undone, it is worth actually describing the undo: what would you have to do, who would you have to tell, how long would it take. If you cannot describe it in a sentence, treat it as the harder kind. The categories are not always obvious, but asking is quick and the answer changes how much of your attention the choice deserves.