Social Science

What am I going to eat for lunch? What time am I going to leave for work today? What am I going to do tonight for fun? All of these questions are examples of decisions that I need to make. Decision-making is the cognitive process leading to the selection of a course of action among alternatives. Every decision making process produces a final choice; therefore, it can be an opinion or an action. It all begins when I need to do something, but I do not know what. Decision making is therefore a reasoning process which can be rational or irrational.

When I make the choice that I need to make a decision, I should choose a tool or technique that can help me make the correct possible selection. The technique that I have chosen is called The PrOACT approach is by far the best model for decision making that I have seen. It helps me see both the tangible and intangible aspects of my situation more clearly and to translate all pertinent facts, feelings, opinions, beliefs and advice into the best possible decision.

'PrOACT' stands for five key elements in the model:

* Problem

* Objectives

* Alternatives

* Consequences

* Tradeoffs

Those five key elements will help me to look at the decisions that I need to make from a number of different perspectives. It will also allow me to move outside my normal way of thinking. With that being said, it will help me to understand the full depth of my decisions. It will also let my spot issues and opportunities that I might not have noticed beforehand.

The method consists of examining last two elements separately, using them to clarify and organize my thoughts as I go. Let's take a look at components.

Consequences

Now comes the time to finally start assessing the merits of each of the alternatives you considered. And the primary way of doing this is by evaluating the consequences of each choice.

After you discard the clearly inferior alternatives you generated, take each of the remaining ones and describe, in writing if possible, what are the consequences of choosing them. That is, imagine how the future will look like for each of them. If you foresee each alternative's consequences well enough, your decision will become obvious.

Unfortunately, this is much easier said than done. Anticipating consequences in complete and precise terms is hard. Predicting the future is something we humans are notoriously bad at -- and that's particularly true when it comes to predict our own future.

So, don't take the process of foreseeing consequences sloppily -- be as realistic as you can and use every tool in your reach to paint as precise a picture of your future as possible. Talk to experienced people who