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Comment by Evan_Hellmuth | Hacker News Reader

I agree with the title! But the article itself is fluff & platitude.

Anecdotally, when I make bad decisions on the job it's almost always due to my emotional state. Whether it's the stress of an impending deadline, lack of sleep, feeling of inferiority, etc.

Even when I'm aware of a dangerous emotional state, it's difficult to make good decisions. Proactive prevention (get enough sleep, exercise, meditate if you're into that) has been the only solution for me. I'd be curious to hear more preventions and especially interventions that work for others.

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Thanks Evan for sharing your thoughts.

Yes, there is more to come on prevention and interventions. To get notified, feel free to follow me (https://medium.com/@amandakwoo) and Criticide (https://medium.com/critically-deciding). In the mean time, one way to start making better decisions in software development is the information we use, specifically estimations we produce (https://hackernoon.com/how-to-do-smarter-estimations-7d67f27...).

I've also added a question to the end of the article to hopefully clarify that the article intent was more for conversation rather than a 'how to'.

Lol. Was it a good decision to describe decision making in business from 38,000 feet?

My first thoughts of business decision making were about complexity of relations. Myself, I'm tasked to maximize certain business goals, armed with heuristics from management. All while our consultancy's clients are trying to maximize my time and minimize their expenses.

Color the emotional state of everybody and now you have some good and bad choices.

I like the Harvard Businee Review (HBR.org) for articles that get down to detail, though articles are really tuned to leadership in all business.

Completely agreed - I think of these as "decision hyperparameters"[1].

Some of the most important ones I think are: awareness of expertise level, adequate time, considered alternatives, slept well, not too hungry, aware of general cognitive biases.

I feel like running through this brief checklist (and checking it twice!) for important decisions has helped me immensely.

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[1] https://alexpetralia.github.io/2017/11/27/NL-2017-11-27.html

Thanks for sharing. I like the short format of the article, and the content.

Don't forget social pressure in your list!

Good one. I'll update the list, thanks.

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