Quotes About Decision-making

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. —Will Rogers

It's OK to decide not to decide—as long as you have a decide-not-to-decide system.

The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.

As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.

Keep everything in your head or out of your head. If it's in between, you won't trust either one.

Even if you've already decided on the next step you'll take to resolve a problem, your mind can't let go until and unless you park a reminder in a place it knows you will, without fail, look.

Here's how I define "stuff": anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn't belong where it is, but for which you haven't yet determined what, exactly, it means to you, with the desired outcome and the next action step.

People think a lot, but most of that thinking is of a problem, project, or situation—not about it. If you actually did this suggested exercise, you were required to structure your thinking toward an outcome and an action, and that does not usually happen without a consciously focused effort. Reacting is automatic, but thinking is not.

The Value of Thinking About Why Here are just some of the benefits of asking why: It defines success. It creates decision-making criteria. It aligns resources. It motivates. It clarifies focus. It expands options.

you haven't decided what the very next physical action step is; and/or you haven't put reminders of the outcome and the action required in a system you trust.

You really have changed, Eddie. What gives?" "The way I had been caused me to lose what was most important to me. Now, I could have been an idiot and doubled down on that. But I decided to use my brain and change how I was conducting myself. Because if you keep doing the same thing over and over, how can you expect a different result?

Hindsight held a level of perfection that real-time decision-making could not provide.

Call it curiosity. Call it instinct. And I am a man who has followed his instincts. —I thought it was principles. —In my experience, they're one and the same.

Every state and national capitol should have a sign on the door: Stop me before I legislate again.

Yet after that, everybody seemed to know what to do, because they understood each other so well. Then they could get together in smaller groups and do something or decide things.

The wealthy also play an ever larger role in deciding who lives and who dies. Or, more specifically, which medical problems get conquered versus which are neglected.

In challenging other leaders intellectually, I strove specifically to push them beyond the incrementalism that usually exists inside organizations—the tendency to consider the short-term implications of a decision exclusively and to ignore the long term.

Or if you wish to put more of a barb in your comments, you can always say, "Yes, Mom, I have in fact decided to get out of bed in spite of the fact that you've been telling me to!

Your job is to choose the solution that you think is the most appropriate. This decision-making isn't subjective; it comes from informed judgment.

the world might be better off if more people accepted responsibility and dealt with consequences. — Dave Drake david-drake.com

You have to know exactly what you're doing before you decide to use guns.

It's all very well to put the government in the hands of the perfect man, but what do you do when the perfect man gets a bellyache?

just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean that you should.

Don't throw good ideas away until you've considered all of your options.