On Decision Paralysis
When it comes to options, success might be found in narrowing them.
👋 Hi, welcome to Till’s Newsletter, a weekly column all about AI for the AI-avoidant. Let’s learn together.
3 Min Read
In today’s newsletter …
🐌 How decision paralysis can dampen your drive.
🚷 You can’t do everything, but you can do some things really well.
🫡 “So Make a decision. Take action. And commit.” – Street-Mood7226 (Thanks Reddit)
Hi everyone,
So, here we are … three months later than intended. Sh*t happens.
My motivation to write was briefly dampened by my tendency to overthink.
When it comes to writing, I tend to get nasty bouts of decision paralysis, defined on Procrastination.com as “having such a tough time choosing between action A or B that we pick action C or do nothing at all. The more options we have in front of us, the harder it becomes to choose one.”
Oftentimes, it reminds me of when I was a kid and got a new journal. There was nothing more exciting to me than starting fresh from that first page, vowing to fill the 99 blank pages to come with the first few chapters of my own novel (my dream as a kid). Inevitably, as it happened with each journal I got, my chapters would dwindle as new story ideas proved shinier and overpoweringly distracting.
This would happen one or two times more until I decided the whole journal was ruined, and I’d either tear out the pages or look forward to a new journal so I could start from scratch again.
Always the perfectionist, I was never very good at making peace with the mess*.
* “the mess” in question being the reality of writing – or creating anything worthwhile, for that matter.
Do I want to write about AI? What about language learning? Or I could write about coffee? Oooh, or there’s also UI/UX design, I’ve always wanted to get more into design … and on and on.
Funny enough, it’s been my work as a Product Manager that’s started pushing me out of this (dis)comfort zone. As a PM, you’re expected to help the companies you work for launch successful products. Whatever you agree success looks like – whether that’s more revenue, higher engagement, or a swath of positive customer feedback on a pain point that was once a thorn in their side – you help put things into action that make that vision of success a reality.
I learned pretty quickly that ruminations, brainstorming sessions and long, arduous meetings are only as effective as the actions that come out of them
– something that seems extremely obvious and yet gets lost in translation all the time.
I can think about designing the perfect T-shirt all I want, but the fact of the matter is that there won’t be a T-shirt until I can decide on a design, pick a printer, and punch in my credit card details.
In Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Plath writes about sitting, hungry, in the shade of fig tree. Under that fig tree, there are more than a few ripe figs for her to choose from – many, for that matter, each better than the last – but for the life of her she can’t decide on which to choose. Time passes more quickly than she expects as she struggles to make her decision and before she knows it, all the figs have rotten and fallen to the ground around her. Finally, with nothing left to eat, she starves to death under the tree.
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about Plath’s fig tree analogy – I just think it’s so damn powerful.
You can have a million options, each better than the last – they’re all worthless (or worse) if all they do is overwhelm you.
You also can’t eat every fig on the tree, just like you can’t chase after every idea, dream, or thought that’s crossed your mind. You’d run yourself ragged.
I think the trick to surviving under the fig tree is this: deciding which of the figs you really want, saying no to the ones that are distracting you, and having the courage to commit; to actually reach, eat & savor.
That second, crucial part – saying no – is still difficult for me. Not being able to do everything I want (all at once) is still hard for me to stomach. I don’t want to choose because choosing means losing (rhyme not intended, but appreciated).
Whenever things are hard to stomach, I’ve made it a habit to get on Reddit and find a thread to commiserate with. Here’s one reply to a thread titled “Want to do everything” that partly inspired today’s newsletter.
So, according to the very wise Street-Mood7226, you can’t do it all. But if you reach out and grab more often, you might get lucky enough to do some things, and do them really well.
When it comes to options, success might be found in narrowing them.
That’s all folks. I’ll be back on track and sending a letter about some prompt engineering learnings of mine next Thursday. See ya then ; )
