Decisive

Focusing is great for analyzing alternatives but terrible for spotting them. Think about the visual analogy—when we focus we sacrifice peripheral vision. And there’s no natural corrective for this; life won’t interrupt our focus to draw our attention to all of our options.

Widen Your Options
Reality-Test Your Assumptions
Attain Distance Before Deciding
Prepare to Be Wrong

Is there a way I can do this AND that?

Superb analysis is useless unless the decision process gives it a fair hearing.

What’s in the spotlight will rarely be everything we need to make a good decision, but we won’t always remember to shift the light.

Our normal habit in life is to develop a quick belief about a situation and then seek out information that bolsters our belief. And that problematic habit, called the “confirmation bias,” is the second villain of decision making.

short-term emotion.

“Any time in life you’re tempted to think, ‘Should I do this OR that?’ instead, ask yourself, ‘Is there a way I can do this AND that?’ It’s surprisingly frequent that it’s feasible to do both things.”

Throughout Walton’s career, he kept his eyes out for good ideas. He once said that “most everything I’ve done I’ve copied from someone else.

7. Push for “this AND that” rather than “this OR that.”