Don’t Stress! 10 Ways to Make Decision-Making Easier 

As an entrepreneur or leader, you’ll have to make many decisions regarding your business. Although some choices will be easy to make, others can be downright overwhelming. You want to do what’s right for you and your company, but you don’t want to overthink yourself into a state of panic.

To find some better approaches to decision-making, we asked a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members the following question:

Q. What is the best way to make solid decisions without stressing yourself out? 

Here’s what they advise:

1. Be Purposeful With Your Time and Attention

Being purposeful is key to making solid decisions without stressing. Make a list of what requires your attention and set aside time to devote to truly thinking about a task or decision at hand. This allows you to dedicate the appropriate mind space to an issue, so you can move forward knowing that you are not making decision haphazardly; rather, you’ve given it the thought it deserves. – Stephen Beach, Craft Impact Marketing

2. Design Clear Decision-Making Processes

Decision-making is an energy-consuming endeavor. The easiest hack to relieve yourself from the burden is by designing robust, repeatable processes. Design flow charts and build use-case scenarios for common situations that your business faces on a regular basis. Sticking to an established workflow will streamline the process and increase productivity. – Mario Peshev, DevriX

3. Ground Yourself Before Making a Decision

Whenever I am making a decision, I get myself into a great headspace first, so I have access to the full resources of my mind. For example, if I’m feeling stressed or scared, I might make decisions from a place of fear instead of abundance. When I’m feeling unsure, I try to ground myself, usually through some kind of physical activity. Then, I decide and take massive action to accomplish it! – Rachel Beider, PRESS Modern Massage

4. Delegate the Decision

One of the best decisions I ever made was not making one. Instead, I assigned that decision to someone I trusted who was better positioned to make the decision. I told him the final decision was his and he was responsible for implementing it. He needed to ask for advice from three people, one of whom was me. His decision and plan to implement was better than I expected and later he became our COO. – Kevin Getch, Webfor

5. Ask for Advice

I’m typically pretty good at making executive decisions and can do so quickly and without hesitation, but I’m not always right. It’s just part of my personality type. When I really can’t make a decision, it tends to stress me out very quickly. So instead of stressing, I gather more data. I ask my business partner or colleagues for advice. Then, I’m more confident in making a final decision. – Han-Gwon Lung, Tailored Ink

6. Narrow It Down to a Few Options

There are lots of things you can do, from consulting with others to giving yourself some time to think about it. But the best approach to making a tough business choice is creating a list of options, evaluating risks, and then eliminating the worst alternatives. When you narrow your list down to a few options, all those decisions will be good enough. Pick one and move on. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS

7. Write Down All Your Reasons 

Writing all the reasons you made a certain decision helps solidify and justify it in your mind rather than leaving you in doubt and stressed out. The physical act of writing it down and reading it provides a way to work it out more in your mind. – Angela Ruth, Calendar

 

8. Give Yourself a Deadline

Often, the most stressful part of making a decision is being in the indecision time. If you give yourself a deadline for the decision, then you can make it and then be done with it. Depending on how important the decision is, you may want to give yourself more time and other processes (such as a pros and cons list). Otherwise, it’s more important to make the decision. – Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure

9. Filter Your Decision Through a Series of Questions

To avoid stress, I filter through these questions to make a decision: Will I help solve a problem that is important to me? Is it big enough to warrant my time, capital, and energy? Will I provide an identifiable competitive advantage, and can I influence the outcome? Am I uniquely positioned to cap on an opportunity that throws off significant income? Will it be fun? Is the team fun to do it with?  – Codie Sanchez, Cresco Capital Partners

10. Trust in Your Experience

Many times, we tend to second guess ourselves. As business owners, we are faced with difficult decisions every day. As much as we strive to be perfect and make perfect decisions, we need to remember that perfection is the enemy of progress. We have all made imperfect decisions in the past; however, we learn from them and continue to move forward. Trust in your experience and your abilities. – Duran Inci, Optimum7

These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most successful young entrepreneurs. YEC members represent nearly every industry, generate billions of dollars in revenue each year and have created tens of thousands of jobs. Learn more at yec.co.