I found this article to be incredibly informative. I was surprised at how bad our brains are at processing lots of information. When I then looked back at decisions I have made in the past that contained large amounts of data, I remember having trouble processing it and making a decision. My natural inclination is to stop looking at it when I feel overwhelmed and take a break. If it is late at night I will usually just go to bed, in order to make the decision in the morning. I have found that I will process the problem in the early morning when I am half awake and half asleep. I will wake up with either a decision or a good idea of how to come up with one. According to the article this would make me a 'sufficer', being able to say, "enough is enough".
The article concludes that it is better to go with your 'gut' instinct, or first idea. This process takes into account emotions. If emotions are left out there is a possibility to over think the problem and come to an incorrect conclusion. For this I liked the example of people rating various strawberry jams. First, just by trying them and saying which they thought tasted the best. Then, they were given specific criteria to rate the jam. People ended up giving great ratings to jams they did not like and bad ratings to jams they really enjoyed. This is a prime example of peoples ability to over think problems and come up with a solution they do not actually agree with.
The best piece of advice that I received from this article is to break up the amount of email I read. I receive emails for work and school almost constantly on a daily basis. In order to make better decisions when responding to them I should read them in groupings. I should not read too many at once and not read them the second I get them throughout the day. A good idea would be to sit down a few times a day and respond to a few emails at a time. Something I should do is not check my email constantly on my smart phone. This article has really helped me reconsider the way that I make decisions and process information.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteI talked about this in my post as well...how bad our brain is at processing lots of information at once. While the article itself overwhelmed me a bit with all of the information that it was giving me, I also took away the part about breaking up your information and making decisions about what is important to take in and what is not. Rather than looking at everything at once, look at chunks a few times throughout the day- I think this would help for me personally to be able to remember more information and also be less stressed out and overwhelmed by all of the information that I am trying to take in.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteI also thought that information about the strawberry jam was very interesting. If they'd just tasted the jam and been allowed to make a simple decision about which they'd liked better, the ratings would have been more accurate. I think it's intriguing how some people view making decisions based on a gut feeling as impulsive, when really it's a better strategy than over analyzing and overloading your brain.
Jason, I agree with many of the points you made in your response. I also think it was very informative and beneficial to learn about how information overload plays such a big role in our decision making. I also really like that example about the jams! It really illustrated the impact of a ton of information on our decisions. Another thing I liked about your post was the ways you are going to change in response to the article. Changing the way you read and respond to emails is a great way to apply this article to your own life!
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