Yes, this can often almost be worse than the problem itself. The four steps recommended in "Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work" are:conwy wrote:These factors put me into an agony of indecision.
1) Widen Your Options
2) Reality Test Your Assumptions
3) Attain Distance Before Deciding
4) Prepare to Be Wrong
I am very good at (1) and decent at (3), okay at (4), but not so good at (2.) For instance, my notion that I have most of the skills necessary to fix up an extremely dilapidated house might be a wee bit optimistic.
You might also try constructing a Doom Loop as described in "Learn to Think in Systems" by Rutherford for this problem. Draw a rectangle in center of paper and label it Living Arrangement Problems. Then draw rectangles to the left and label them with what you believe to be primary cause variable of Living Arrangement Problems. Then draw some rectangles to the right and label them with what you believe to be the primary consequences of Living Arrangement Problems. For instance "Noise" and "Theft" might be primary cause variables and "Work Performance" and "Sleep" and "Destruction/Loss of Property" might be primary consequences. Then examine whether you can link any of the consequence variables to the cause variables, adding intermediate variables if necessary to make sense of links/loops. For instance, as you suffer from increased lack of "Sleep" you might become even more sensitive to "Noise." "Theft" might contribute to "Destruction/Loss of Property" but you might realize that it is a minor negative flow relative to major rental expense reduction inherent in choice of less secure neighborhood/accommodations. Etc.