Ask HN: How do you make difficult decisions?

I just had this discussion with my daughter this morning, and how you might reasonably decide if it is ok to break a rule.

Often your chice is should do x or y, wait or do now, get the big one or the small one.

By contemplating outcomes in terms or relative risks, you can avoid the problem of trying to evaluate and normalise absolute risk.

eg ask youself, "is the risk of proceding less than the risk of not proceding"

By asking yourself a comparative questoin, rather than an absolute one, it can often become a lot easier to decide.

A Systems Thinking approach:

- Identify all of the entities involved -- people, places, instruments, environments, etc

- For each of those entities, identify what bigger systems are they part of, and also what smaller systems are they comprised of.

- Enumerate all of these things' relationships to one another

- Consider how the the decision will affect the entities, systems, and relationships, in each of the possible scenarios

- Weigh the benefits and drawbacks from all of those perspectives, and then make the call.