Quotes About Decision-making

Instead of telling him what to do, find ways to involve him in decisions

Where do we put your diaper?" "Which book do you want to read?" "What do you think will happen if you push your tricycle over the curb?" or "How should we get ready for childcare?

What is the first thing we should put away when we get home—the ice cream or the orange juice? You decide.

In the good old days few people questioned the idea that Dad's decisions were final. Because of the human rights movement, this is no longer true. Rudolf Dreikurs pointed out, "When Dad lost control of Mom, they both lost control of the children." All this means is that Mom quit giving the children a model of submissiveness.

I began to listen to myself more... Trusting myself, I discovered, meant giving up control over my decisions. The choice came from me, but not from the part of me that used to decide—the mind that weighed, the mind that projected scenarios, the mind that controlled.

A writer must stand on the rock of her self and her judgment or be swept away by the tide or sink in the quaking earth: there must be an inviolate place where the choices and decisions, however imperfect, are the writer's own, where the decision must be as individual and solitary as birth or death.

Grace thought, Perhaps I ought to comment on some news. Unfortunately Grace was one of those people who can become a bore and an irritation to others and an anguish to themselves because their lives are dominated by "ought". "What ought I to do? Do you think I ought to -"... They refuse to let a situation rest; they must tamper with it, adjust it, change it, impose upon it their immediate concern of "ought".

Back in 1993, he said, "An orangutan could figure out that the stock is selling miles above the value of the company if it were liquidated. I keep telling people this, but they keep buying the stock."24

Impatience can cause wise people to do foolish things.

Cine nu mediteaz? temeinic la problema interdic?iilor ?i a obliga?iilor, atunci când acestea sunt mai pu?ine, nu va face fa??, se va sim?i pierdut, când vor fi multe.

Unlike Lyndon Johnson, who would later be swayed by the influence of Kennedy's advisors on Vietnam, Truman developed an independent view.

I am a master of logic and a powerfully convincing debater. In fact, against my better judgment, I can talk myself out of doing anything.

The more you can see options, the quicker you can regain a sense of control.

When you build a product or service, you make the call on hundreds of tiny decisions each day. If you're solving someone else's problem, you're constantly stabbing in the dark. When you solve your own problem, the light comes on. You know exactly what the right answer is.

The best designers and the best programmers aren't the ones with the best skills, or the nimblest fingers, or the ones who can rock and roll with Photoshop or their environment of choice, they are the ones that can determine what just doesn't matter. That's where the real gains are made.

Management scholar Peter Drucker nailed it decades ago when he said "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

Management scholar Peter Drucker nailed it decades ago when he said "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." Bam!

Not doing something that isn't worth doing is a wonderful way to spend your time.

If you can't fit everything you want to do within 40 hours per week, you need to get better at picking what to do, not work longer hours. Most of what we think we have to do, we don't have to do at all. It's a choice, and often it's a poor one.

Always keeping the door open to radical changes only invites chaos and second-guessing.

It doesn't matter how much you plan, you'll still get some stuff wrong anyway. Don't make things worse by overanalyzing and delaying before you even get going.

Given that, you're only going to frustrate yourself and everyone else if you summon the brain trust too frequently for those Kodak moments. Because either it means giving up on the last great idea (the one that still requires follow-up) or it means further stuffing the backlog of great ideas. A stuffed backlog is a stale backlog.

Why don't we just call plans what they really are: guesses. Start referring to your business plans as business guesses, your financial plans as financial guesses, and your strategic plans as strategic guesses. Now you can stop worrying about them as much. They just aren't worth the stress.

Plantéatelo así: si tuvieras que arrancar tu negocio en dos semanas, ¿qué dejarías para más tarde? Es curioso cómo una pregunta como ésta te obliga a concentrar tus energías. De pronto te das cuenta de que hay cantidad de cosas que no necesitas. Y que ahora te parece evidente lo que realmente es imprescindible.