My 24 Hour Rule of Decision Making

Whether it is about hiring a CTO or firing a liar and dishonest employee, whether it is about buying resources or shutting down any feature, it is always about making a decision or I should say making about the right decision. But making a decision and that too a good one is never easy and quite amazingly it is not because of that we are not capable of making a nice decision but it is due to some external factors that affect our brain.

Well in this article, I am not planning to unfold the art of fast decision making with decisions like what would you like to have for lunch or which movie would you prefer to watch tonight? This article is only for long term decisions like career, hiring cofounders, putting forward the best rate in negotiation meeting etc.

But before we proceed on how to make the best decisions, first we should know which factors impact the capabilities of decision making.

Factors That Impact Decision Making

1. Personal Factors

These factors include personal opinions about particular things. These decisions might include, for example, if I personally like cricket over football so I will always remain biased towards cricket and accordingly will take decisions.

2. Social Factors

It is about thinking how society will react to the decisions that you take. The reactions of people in the society depend on what kind of reputation you have in the society. These people include the member of the family, friends, relatives etc. Consider my case for instance. I am considered the most serene and gullible guy in my group so it is always going to remain difficult for me to start a condom company.

3. Cultural Factors

These factors are related to how your upbringing has been done. It includes cast, religion, values etc. Like I am an Indian Hindu and if I found two girls attractive at the same time, then the chances are I will get drifted towards the Indian Hindu girl easily as compared to the girl of other cast or religion or nationality.

4. Information

It is a very crucial aspect that people don’t care much about. And the information factor becomes all the more important when money/ business/crime is involved. This thing I have learned extremely well during my real-estate days. So whenever we came up with a new project, we used to create so much hype that we shed 80%-90% competing projects under the hype. Now, what is expected of a client to do when he/she is not even aware of all the projects? He will surely go with the things which were informed to him.

5. Psychological Factors

Well, this you can relate to the scenario of alpha men vs beta men. Everyone in this world consciously or unconsciously tries to overpower or dominate his/ her opponent. In this process, we all build some psychological pressure either by scolding or by bullying.

Have you ever seen sledging in any of the sports?

What is the purpose of that?

Simple! To create unnecessary pressure on the opponent and person who is more alpha will overcome the situation and person with beta qualities will surrender.

Now how does my rule come into play and help me in making the best decisions? But before that let me tell you what is the 24 Hour Rule.

What is the 24 Hour Rule?

This rule is very simple and states,

Never say a complete Yes or No before 24 Hours.

So whatever the condition is, whatever the pressure is, I never took any decision until it is 24 hours. I have been involved in big financial negotiations and brokerage negotiations. I have taken decisions on leaving good running jobs, leaving a well settled career, leaving tempting money offerings etc. But I never regretted taking those decisions even 0.1% because this rule makes everything so simple to me that I can see everything properly. And do you know what, by doing so I have always been treated as one of the smartest guys in the group. So this is an advantage of applying this rule.

Related- How a Good Decision Increased my Results by 98%

What do I do in 24 Hours Decision Making Rule?

I know most of the time, we all are under so much of pressure that it seems like we have to take the decision in the next 5 minutes or 1 hour max. But the truth is far away from reality, but you can trust this thing when you are a risk taker. I always keep this thing in my mind that

Every penny does not belong to me and it is ok if I lose this opportunity, it will only teach me.

So when I feel so, it becomes easy for me to overcome that situational hype/ pressure over that time but yeah you cannot stand from the discussion table normally, you need to say something.

So like every normal person on Earth, I took a decision at that point but just added few magical words with the statement and those are “It’s my 99.9% decision”. And that statement is more than enough to lower the situational pressure and to get the next 24 hours to think again before taking a final decision.

So in that 24 hours, I don’t talk to any such person who can influence me or my decision making ability. I do a great deal of research in those 24 hours on my own over the things. I sleep a lot, I think a lot while going to bed and that unconscious mind or you can say the gut feeling always helps me in such situations.

But do remember one thing that you have to take proper rest and do talk to yourself as much as possible.

And by using this method of 24 hours I easily avoid any extraordinary pressure that I come across. And usually, those unnecessary pressures are situational. Those are very similar to those sexual urges which we often feel and once we got diverted from that situation which increases the urge in us then we are again perfectly normal.

So here the thing to understand is to avoid the situation just like those hormones urges. If you got successful in avoiding these situations, then you are a winner and can easily take a good decision but if you fail to avoid them, then you get trapped into those feelings and will take a wrong decision.