Mastering Decision-Making: 3 Powerful Techniques for Clear Choices | Taiwanica Podcast S2 Episode 16

中文在下面囉！

In this episode, Eric talks about three decision making techniques that he uses in his life that have been game changers: 

• 10-10-10 Method:
  • Evaluate decisions based on how they'll impact you in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years.
  • Helps prioritize choices aligned with long-term goals and well-being.
• Following Your Inner Voice:
  • Tune into intuition by mentally contrasting between two options until one feels more resonant.
  • Ideal for smaller decisions where gut feelings can guide choices effectively.
• The Eisenhower Technique:
  • Categorize tasks by importance and urgency into four quadrants.
  • Enables effective prioritization for tasks in business, work, or personal life.

Here Are The Main Takeaways:

Eric's episode on decision-making introduces practical techniques:

• Long-Term Perspective: Consider the impact of decisions over different timeframes (10-10-10 Method) to align choices with future goals.
• Intuitive Decision-Making: Trust your inner voice (Following Your Inner Voice) for smaller decisions by mentally contrasting options until one stands out.
• Task Prioritization: Use the Eisenhower Technique to categorize tasks based on urgency and importance, ensuring efficient allocation of time and resources.

"下定決心：三種有效技巧幫助做出明智選擇 | Taiwanica第76集"

• Eric 在台灣播客上分享了三種改變命運的方法，幫助簡化決策過程。
• 10-10-10 方法：
  • 根據決策對你在10分鐘、10個月和10年後的影響進行評估。
  • 幫助優先考慮符合長期目標和幸福的選擇。
• 聽從內心的聲音：
  • 通過在兩個選項之間進行心理對比，直到其中一個感覺更加共鳴來調整直覺。
  • 適用於小型決策，直覺感受可以有效地引導選擇。
• 艾森豪威爾技巧：
  • 將任務按重要性和緊急性分為四個象限。
  • 確保有效優先處理商業、工作或個人生活中的任務。

主要要點：

Eric 在決策方面的節目介紹了實用的技巧：

• 長遠視角：根據不同時間範圍（10-10-10 方法）評估決策的影響，以符合未來目標。
• 直覺決策：通過聽從內心的聲音（聽從內心的聲音）在小型決策中進行心理對比，直到找到最合適的選擇。
• 任務優先級：使用艾森豪威爾技巧按緊急性和重要性將任務進行分類，確保有效分配時間和資源。

Transcript

EP # 76 3 Ways to make clear decisions

[00:00:00] This is episode 76 talking about three easy ways to make decisions. What's up, everybody? This is Eric, one of the hosts here on Taiwan podcast here to bring you one of the Friday specials, and it will just be me today giving you this special. I'm very excited about this information because it has been life changing for me.

And I have heard lots of people out there telling me how it's been difficult for them to make decisions. So here are going to be some of the easiest things that you can do immediately right after hearing them. to help you make decisions in a variety of ways. Some of them are more thinking process. Some of them are more feeling process.

And I'll explain the difference between the two as we go through them. So I only have three today, but there are definitely lots of them. So if you have a decision making process that you find [00:01:00] very valuable, please share in Taiwan podcast on Instagram, we'll be happy to know what you do to be able to improve yourself.

But for everybody else listening who don't have any. Decision making styles and they are still wanting to learn how to change that in their life Definitely tune in all the way till the end because all three of these are pretty powerful All right. So just to dive on in i'm going to start with number one Number one is one new one that I recently discovered, but i've found it to be very powerful and impacting in my life immediately as soon as they started using it and that is called the 10 10 10 method.

That's right. You heard three tens there. Each of them represent a different time. One of them is 10 minutes. The second one is 10 months and the third one is 10 years. Now What's going on is what we're trying to create a clear idea of when I make a choice, [00:02:00] will I be happy about the choice I make within 10 minutes, within 10 months, and within 10 years.

So, let me give you a clear example of what that might look like. let's say, for example, you have a habit. I have a habit, and that is to eat chocolate. For all you who know me, I love dark chocolate. It's one of my favorite foods out there. And sometimes I will get into the habit some people might call it a bad habit, of eating chocolate too much and too often.

So One example of that might being I eat it once a week or maybe even more, maybe every day. And so sometimes, especially recently, because I have been eating it quite often, I will ask myself, is this a good idea? So when I started using the 10 10 10 method, I would first say, okay, When I'm about to eat the chocolate, I would ask myself, is this something that I would want to be happy with eating 10 minutes from now?

Would I be okay that I [00:03:00] ate this chocolate today? And if the answer is yes, okay, well then I can continue on. Well, will this be a habit that I would like to continue to grow? The next 10 months from now. So I keep eating chocolate like this every day for the next 10 months. Oh, okay. Maybe not because what's gonna happen?

Well, I might feel a little bit unhealthy. I might feel a little bit like i've gained a lot of weight. Something along these lines. Okay. And then if I think about it even further, well, 10 years, if I keep doing this for 10 straight years, wow, well, I might just well be a chocolate bar because I'm eating chocolate all the dang time for 10 straight years.

Good God. Goodness, I don't think that's a good idea. So when I approached it this way and thinking about it, not only about the current Eric, but I'm also thinking 10 months from now Eric and 10 years from now Eric, two out of three Erics are not satisfied with this habit, not with this choice. [00:04:00] So in the end, I decided that I'm not going to continue eating chocolate every day.

Even though the 10 minute Eric and the current Eric feel a little sad saying that, And the 10 month version and the 10 year version of ERIC is actually very happy about this choice. Why? Because I'm making a healthy choice that is holistically connected to who I am. So that's why I think this method is very powerful and you can use it immediately with lots of things.

There are some other examples I'd like to share, but I'm only going to share one more. It's about work. So another example that I know of is a woman who is really passionate about her job, but we'll just call her Mary as an example here. Mary really wanted to improve herself and her work career, but in the end she also has kids and she's a single mom.

And so sometimes she needs to make choices that are going to be connected to her family and sometimes she needs to make choices that are connected to her job. At one time, Mary was given an option [00:05:00] of going out and spending time with her kids right after her work. But all of a sudden her work is actually asking her to stay over time because there's this really important project that needs to be completed by the end of the night.

So Mary did the 10 10 10 option here. She said to herself, okay, 10 minutes from now, would I be happy to stay at the job or would I be happy about leaving the job and spending time with my kids? Well, 10 minutes from now, Mary thought, okay, well, I'd probably be happy spending time with my kids, but let's look 10 months in the future.

So she looked 10 months in the future. What happened? Well, she said, if I do this option of not staying for the project and in the business world, as a single mother, there's a lot of hypocrisy of, Oh, if a single mother says no one time, she's going to probably say no many times. And this assumption is made about single mothers not being able to stay committed to the work. And she knew this, and so [00:06:00] she decided at that moment, maybe it's not a good idea. And then she looked 10 years in the future and what did she see? She said, well, if I make the choice of staying at the job, then there's a really good chance that I can get a promotion.

sure, my kids might be unhappy at this one moment, but there are going to be plenty of times where I could make up for this one time of not spending time with the kids. And I can definitely, you know, work with communicating with them why this was so important. So in the end, she decided to stay.

And 10 years later, she has been using this method for quite a while. She got the promotion that she really wanted and she works at a really big organization. So by doing the steps, she was able to gain the result that she really wanted rather than focusing on the impulse of what she desired in the moment.

So, hopefully that shows you the power behind 10 10 10 method. We're gonna go on [00:07:00] to method number two. Method number two is going to be a feeling decision maker. Okay, it's not a thinking cognitive method. it's about following your gut. Okay, maybe, perhaps a lot of you have heard this phrase, following your gut.

But a lot of people say, well, I know where my gut is in my body, but I don't know how necessarily to follow it. Or some people say, Oh, I know how to follow my heart sometimes, but sometimes I don't and keep in mind, this is all connected to intuition, knowing what your inner self really wants. And this is really powerful stuff.

It can help you through a lot of things in life if you know how to tune into it. So today we're going to just use a very simple. simple technique for you to make this decision when it's a little bit difficult. It's going to be for smaller decisions rather than larger ones because larger decisions usually need a little bit more of a [00:08:00] cognitive process like the 10 10 10 method.

or the next method I'll be introducing. But for, you know, smaller things when, or when you're in a moment where you're not really sure what to do at all this method that I'm about to introduce will be very helpful. Okay, this is a method that I actually invented and that is to follow your inner voice but when you're doing this, usually you're going to have two options in front of you.

So let's make an example to make it really clear. Okay, so you have a vacation. You want to go on with your family. But your family really has two desires. They want to go either to, for example, Japan, or they want to go to Thailand. Okay, both of them are equally possible. Both of them have great choices and great opportunities for you to experience.

All of your family members want to go to both of these [00:09:00] places. There's not really a greater level of Japan or a greater level of Thailand. They're both great. equally. And so you're stuck. And so you're thinking, well, which one to pick? Because logically speaking, they all look, they both look perfect. So in that kind of situation, this is where this kind of decision making can be very beneficial.

So this is what you do. Simply in your head, when you're thinking about the choice, think about the two places, back and forth, just go back and forth, Japan, Thailand. Japan, Thailand. Japan, Thailand. Sooner or later, one of these words is going to get louder in your head. Japan, Thailand. Japan, Thailand. Japan, Thailand.

Okay, so we're, you're getting the idea, right? So, Thailand is starting to sound louder in your head. And [00:10:00] if you're not really sure if that's true or not, you can go the opposite way. Like, Thailand, Japan. Japan. Thailand, Japan, Thailand, Japan, you know, so it, you know, you can confirm if you want to do both ways.

Sometimes I do that just in case. But it's very effective. And the, the reason why I love this method is because I'm tuning into both mind and body at the same time. And at the end of the day, I don't regret my decision because I feel like I made a conscious choice. Between the two, I made a very clear and awareness choice of which one I wanted, and that was Thailand in this situation.

So, that's a very easy technique that you can use for really small things that you want to try. Okay. So we're going to dive into our third and final technique today. And that is called the Eisenhower technique. Eisenhower is a man who invented this technique. It's a more [00:11:00] cognitive analytical.

Technique that you can use for making decisions that are more important. And they can usually be used for things like business or for like big decisions with your family or, you know, things that you're usually doing on a regular basis, but you know, they need to have a schedule or an importance level.

Okay. So that's actually part of it. Importance. So here we go. The Eisenhower technique is actually two keywords. And we're going to analyze both of them in a specific way. So, the first word is levels of importance, so something important. And the second one is level of urgency, or urgent. Okay? So, we're going to put these in a square.

And the inside of the square, there are going to be four small squares. And so on the left side of this, this square, the two squares on the left side, one of them is going to be [00:12:00] important and the other one's going to be not important. On the right hand of the square side, it's going to be urgent on the top and on the bottom, not urgent.

Okay? So what we're going to do here is look at the first one, which has both important and urgent. So important, let's talk about it really quick. Okay. If we talk about something that is important, important means that you need to get it done, right? It needs to be done. Urgent, on the other hand, is talking about it's quickly needing to be done, right?

It's, the speed is here. And so, if something has both the tops, both urgent and important together, then that decision that you're trying to think of right now, so an example of that might be, oh I'm going to make an example with my son because he's easiest to think of. My son, if he has no diapers left in the house that is going to be an important and urgent decision that I [00:13:00] need to go buy some more diapers.

If not, there's going to be poop and pee all over the house, right? So that right there is an important and urgent situation. That needs to get done now. Okay, no waiting. Because if not, if you'd wait, there's gonna be some urgent or dire consequences. Okay, now, let's say it only has important, but it doesn't have urgent.

Okay, so, it is something that you need to do, but it doesn't have that time connected to it. Okay, in that kind of situation, you can schedule it. Okay, so let's say, for example, I want to make another episode of Taiwanica, okay, or maybe you want to go and meet a friend, okay. It's important for you, and it's important for me, but maybe it's not something that needs to be done today, right, but it wants to be done soon.

So you can easily just put this in your calendar, whatever kind of calendar you like to use, and then just make sure that it gets done. And by [00:14:00] scheduling it, simply by putting it in your schedule, you're telling yourself, okay, this is important to me, so I'm going to do my best to complete it in time. Now let's say something is urgent, but not important, okay?

If it's only urgent and it's not important to you, let's say something is happening in your life, like, oh my gosh, this letter, I have a letter that I need to mail, okay, for the company. Or I need to send this letter for a friend. It's urgent, but it's not important to me, right? So in this kind of situation you can Delegate this word means just to give the task or the work to somebody else If possible, so I know that's not possible for everybody, but if possible, if you have a friend or a family member or a colleague who can help you with the task that is only urgent, then you can decide, instead of you taking the time to do it, [00:15:00] you can go and ask somebody else to do it for you.

And in that kind of situation, you're saving yourself time. If we're doing the more important things instead of having to take the time to do something that's only urgent, but not necessarily for you personally Important right? So yes. Now the last one is something that's not important and not urgent Okay, a lot of people get stuck on these tasks.

They think, Oh, wow, this, I have these things I need to do, but neither is it important to me and it's neither urgent, but somehow I do these things first. And a lot of people do this because of, you know, confusion or just having difficulty of being dedicated to the work that needs to get done. Or, you know, just pure laziness can also be an issue.

And these kind of situations are the reason why these kind of tasks, if you know that they are neither important nor urgent, then you just toss them, you know, you get rid of them, or [00:16:00] if at the very least you put them into a schedule that maybe you can do later, or even create, this is what I do is well, I plan on creating this is a reconsidering list and having a reconsidering list will help you just look at it again later when you're not really focused on it so much and think again, is this important to me?

Is this urgent? And when you have that on that list and not in your head all the time, you're able to think clearly about the choices that you do want to make at this specific moment. So that is the Eisenhower technique. All three techniques that I've introduced today are powerful and helpful in their own ways.

You can try them all out in all different kind of situations. Personally, I think the 10 10 10 technique is really great when you're making life choices. Okay, so when you're trying to think of something that you want to do for yourself [00:17:00] for now and in the future, it's great. When you're in a state of urgency or you have a situation where you just really don't know which word to use, Way to go.

You're kind of just stuck. The second one, following your gut or following your heart technique is very helpful thinking about it, going back and forth until you make a decision that's allowed in your head. And then finally, Eisenhower technique is really great, especially in business or work scenarios, because you're thinking clearly about what are all the tasks are available to me right now.

And what do I need to do quickly and it's important to me and anything else can be delegated, organized to somebody else, or it can just wait. So yeah, these are the techniques that I wanted to share with you today. There it is. I really hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, please definitely give it a thumbs up wherever you're watching.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, that would be great and [00:18:00] also spread the word about Taiwanica Podcast. We are here to help you every single week, and if you are interested in learning more, we'll be spending more time on our new website that is called ericandanita.com and you can find out even more information like our blog and our new content and events that we're going to be hosting there so definitely check it out when you have the time that's ericandanita.com and also finally, if you are interested you can check out buymeacoffee.com/taiwanica for some funny things that Anita and I like to make and support us through there. Thank you very much for listening.

Bye.