Image source: https://www.colblog.com/how-to-improve-your-decision-making-skills-become-a-doer/ I am a firm believer in using and to make my day to day decisions. If you are from a consulting background this might be second nature to you, but for others like me it takes time incorporating them into our lives. frameworks mental models In this post I will introduce you to a I use to make tough decisions; both in my personal and professional life. The origin of this framework is unknown to me. Maybe I first discovered it on Reddit? I am not sure. This framework has then been modified to suit my needs. So without further ado, here it is. framework Lets suppose you are a 25 year old developer in Bangalore with 3 years work experience. and after a month of intense job hunting you land 2 greats offers. One from ‘Top Dog MNC’ and another from a hot upcoming startup called ‘Disrupt Inc’. You are looking for a new job What would you do? Take a pen and paper. . What do you care about the most in your job? We will call them factors. Write your core values first For me the most important things are: Freedom at work without micro My reporting managerFlexibility to work from home if required Flexi timingsMatching my career goals….. management Your factors might be different. Take as much time as you need to think what they are. This is the first and most important step. Earlier I would let people put 10–20 factors. Lately I have been advocating using only the top 10 and dropping the rest. Even better: Choose only 5. This will help you get more clarity on what you are after in your career. Next step is allocation of 100 points across these 10 factors; give a value to each factor. Don’t divide them equally. Sort the factors based on decreasing importance and then allocate points for each of them, keeping in mind that you only have 100 in total. Done? Now create a table like shown below. Table for deciding next job Rate both these companies (out of 10) for each factors and then multiply it with the factor value. Once you do this, tally the numbers and you will come out with a final score for both companies. In the dummy table I created I have come with a score of X for Top Dog MNC and Y for Disrupt Inc. As we can see Disrupt Inc is the clear winner. But if you are still confused then it means deep down you actually wanted Top Dog MNC to win. This exercise is both mathematical and psychological. It is like deciding something by a coin toss. While it is in the air, you already know which side you are rooting for. So go with that! Over the next few weeks I will be introducing some more mental frameworks I use in my life. Stay up to date with my latest posts/tweets here: @manas_saloi
