Systems Blaming

Overcoming Options Paralysis & Decision Fatigue

Welcome to “All the Tasks Fit to Print,” my weekly newsletter on all issues productivity related for authors and other solopreneurs!

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On Twitter the other day I created a poll asking people what they found to be the most difficult part of wrangling time management. I was surprised when the winning answer (by a fair margin!) was "option paralysis."

I honestly assumed that "overwhelm" would be the winner by a landslide! I was so very wrong.

Which is why I am writing this newsletter about "option paralysis" instead of "overwhelm"! Joke’s on me!

Fortunately, there is a three step method of attacking option paralysis, of which no steps will be "just make a choice!" (If you could do that, it wouldn't be a problem, would it?)

1. STOP

2. Review

3. Renew

It's really that simple! Bear with me…

Difficult Choices Do Not Make Themselves!

First, let's look under the hood at why option paralysis is such an issue for people. Psychologically speaking, option paralysis is more accurately described as decision paralysis. Generally, decision paralysis is when a person cannot make a decision out of fear of making the wrong decision. The reasons the decision might be wrong can be numerous but they do tend to boil down to some flavor of "fear of doing the wrong thing."

Of course, the instruction normally given to anyone suffering from option paralysis is to make any decision you can and deal with the fallout. Obviously that is great advice…if only any of us could follow it! But we can't, because we're too paralyzed by the chance of disaster striking.

As a project manager, when I see an issue that is essentially a dam in the river of productivity, it's my job to look up river and see where all the detritus is coming from. Option paralysis doesn't come out of nowhere, either; oftentimes, it is the collection of a lot of things that have clogged up your schedule and your vision to the point where you are frozen in place, looking at several important things that need to be done now but you simply cannot muster the willpower to choose.

The way I usually see this manifest is when people have a long list of things they need to do, half of which are marked as priority items, and they simply cannot decide which one should come first. Yes, just picking one and doing it does get you over the problem of feeling paralyzed by all the options in front of you, if only it were that easy. More importantly, it doesn't solve the problem of you choosing the wrong one task to do first, nor does it actually unblock the dam. You still have a whole set of things that are all very important that also need to be done yesterday, only now the list has moved up by one. Did it get shorter? Probably not.

You cannot prioritize yourself out of this, I'm afraid. Even if you can sort your choices down to your top three, how do you figure to chose between those? And what happens tomorrow when the whole process regenerates?

Time for the Knitting Analogy…

To be clear: I don't knit. I look at fabric arts like they are magic. You take string and turn it into clothes?!?!?? ASTOUNDING!

I do understand the underlying principles, though, and I know that if you want to find you some first class project managers, find you someone who knits.

(Cue: project management dudebros rolling their eyes and then running their projects into cost overruns by the millions ahahahahah)

What knitters (and most fabric artists) understand is that if the section you are working on is borked, chances are good that you actually screwed up two or three or ten rows ago.

In regards to option paralysis, this translates as having a bunch of things piled up together that you can't choose between because, earlier (in the day? the week? the year?) you "knitted when you should have purled" in some fashion. Or you dropped a stitch, or used the wrong yarn/thread/needle, or…well, you get what I mean.

No, this isn't victim blaming, this is systems blaming. It might not even be about making a mistake. It could be the plan you started out with had an intrinsic, if hidden, fault line that derailed everything ten steps down the line. The point is, you won't know why your choices are burying you with indecision until you actually look at the big picture.

So, back to the three steps:

1. STOP: I mean it, stop everything! Unless your paycheck is relying on a deliverable, just stop. I know it's scary. There is a moment in every project manager's life when they have to throw the lever and stop everything. Absolutely nobody wants to do that, ever, for any reason! When you're talking about multimillion-dollar enterprises such as construction of a commercial office building or a venture capital-backed software app, stopping costs a lot of money and a lot of goodwill. Most project managers worth their salt will go a very long way to avoid being the person to throw that lever. However, if you are not doing anything anyway due to option paralysis, this is less of a problem, eh?

2. REVIEW: Literally or figuratively, look backwards at what you've done or scheduled and pick apart what's there. I almost called this step "unravel" because you are basically pulling apart what you've done so far to figure out where the blockage is originating from. I want you to resist the urge to prioritize/re-prioritize things on your list. whether you have already prioritized your tasks or not doesn't matter! Option paralysis not about the priority of a task, it is about how you have set up your projects from the get-go. Your option paralysis was determined long before you ever realized you had too many options to choose from wisely! Are you overcommitting to projects? Have you made Wednesday a beast of tasks and deadlines, leaving you no energy for all of Thursday's work? Too many meetings? Overlapping production schedules? You need to ask someone else to pick up the kids from school on Tuesdays and Fridays? It's really important when you are facing option paralysis to be able to pull apart everything you've labeled as "top priority" and put them into separate buckets based on what role that particular task has in a project. You'll be surprised how much clarity this will give you.

3. RENEW: No, not "restart." We do not want you to restart where you left off. Continuing with the knitting analogy, this is the point where you have gone back, unraveled what didn't work, checked the pattern for instructions, and started putting things together in a better way. If the knitting analogy isn't working for you, think of it this way: your out doing errands and took a turn five streets back that brought you to a dead-end. You can't just sit there deciding which house to drive through! Back up, retrace your steps, check the map, re-orientate yourself, and maybe decide on not going to one of the stores on your list until tomorrow. If you did a thorough review like the awesome project manager I know you are, then you identified ways to reduce your option paralysis by moving things around, reprioritizing them, or rescheduling them.

Now bask in the joy of making actual decisions and the knowledge that your productivity will be going up significantly because you were brave enough to STOP-Review-Renew!

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As “The Task Mistress,” I am a productivity coach for authors and solopreneurs. Using my background as a project manager and all-round productivity nerd, I help people find holistic productivity so they can achieve all their goals, both personal and professional.