The art of decision-making: 7 simple ways to stop overthinking

by Lachlan Brown | October 14, 2025, 3:34 am

Modern life gives us more choices than ever, and somehow that’s made deciding harder, not easier.

You know the feeling: you’re weighing pros and cons, checking reviews, asking two more friends, opening another tab… and suddenly an hour is gone and you’re still stuck.

I’ve been there—especially early in my career when every choice felt like it would make or break my future.

What changed wasn’t that I found a magic method. It was that I learned to make good-enough decisions faster and then move.

That’s the real art: reducing the mental noise so you can choose, act, and learn.

Below are seven simple ways I use to stop overthinking and decide with more confidence.

They come from psychology, mindfulness, and a few lessons from Eastern philosophy that I’ve picked up over the years.

And yes, they’re intentionally practical—you can use any of them today.

1. Set a timer and decide within the window

Have you ever noticed how tasks stretch to fill the time you give them? Decisions do too.

When I’m stuck, I set a short, visible timer—usually 10 to 20 minutes—and commit to deciding before it goes off.

No new tabs, no texts, just focused thinking. If it’s a bigger decision (say, changing jobs), I’ll set a 24-hour window.

The point isn’t to be reckless; it’s to stop decisions from becoming endless.

Why this works: constraints create clarity.

A deadline forces your brain to prioritize the few variables that actually matter.

It also reduces the emotional spiral that comes from “one more bit of research.”

You’re telling your mind, “We’re not solving the entire universe. We’re making a call now.”

If you’re worried about getting it “wrong,” remember: action reveals information.

You can always iterate (more on that in point 7).

2. Define “good enough” before you research

Perfectionism and overthinking are best friends.

I used to start researching without a destination in mind—no surprise I’d end up lost.

Now I define success before I start. I ask: “What does a good-enough choice look like?”

For example: a laptop that fits my budget, runs my key apps, and lasts 5+ hours on battery. That’s it. Once a choice hits those criteria, I buy and move on.

This pre-commitment does two things. First, it kills the moving target of perfection—your brain stops chasing the phantom “best.”

Second, it shortens the decision cycle dramatically because you’re scanning for matches, not comparing every option against every other option.

If you need a mental trick, use the 80% rule: if an option hits 80% of your defined criteria, it’s a yes.

The last 20% is usually vanity metrics and diminishing returns.

3. Limit your options on purpose

Choice is wonderful—until it isn’t. The more options you juggle, the more your mind spins.

So I use the “Rule of Three”: I narrow down to three viable options, then choose from those. Not five, not seven—three.

Here’s how: first, brainstorm freely. Then quickly eliminate anything that clearly misses your must-haves (see point 2).

From what’s left, pick the top three that excite you or check the most boxes. Put the rest out of sight.

Make your final call from those three.

This is straight out of cognitive load theory: your working memory has limited slots.

Three options keep your brain in analysis—not paralysis. And if you worry you’ll miss out on a unicorn, remember that clarity beats completeness.

A choice you actually execute will always outperform the “perfect” choice that never leaves your head.

4. Externalize the decision with a one-page brief

Overthinking loves ambiguity. When all the ideas are swirling in your head, everything feels equally important. The antidote is to write it down.

I keep a simple one-page decision brief with five bullets:

  • What decision am I making?

  • What problem am I solving?

  • My non-negotiables (top 3–5)

  • Top options (max 3) with one line each

  • My pick and the next action

This takes 10–15 minutes and collapses the chaos. Something weird happens when you externalize your thinking: fuzzy worries become concrete.

You notice when you’re obsessing over tiny differences that don’t matter.

And you nudge yourself toward action by ending with a specific next step (“Email Sam to confirm budget” beats “Think about it more”).

I’ve talked about this before, but writing is a form of thinking.

If your brain feels scrambled, it’s asking for a page, not another hour of rumination.

5. Use your body’s signal: the somatic “yes/no” check

Eastern philosophy has a beautiful thread about listening to what’s already wise within you.

Mindfulness taught me a simple practice: pause, breathe, and ask your body.

Here’s the quick version:

  1. Sit, feet grounded. Inhale slowly for four counts, exhale for six. Do that three times.

  2. Bring one option to mind and imagine choosing it.

  3. Scan your body: do you feel expansive (open chest, easy breath) or contracted (tight jaw, knotted stomach)?

It’s not mystical; it’s interoception—your body’s readout on risk, desire, and alignment.

Often, the subtle yes/no signal shows up before the mind writes its essay.

I won’t pretend this trumps logic. Use it to inform logic, not replace it. If your body says “no,” ask why.

Are you picking up on a value conflict? A hidden cost? If it says “yes,” maybe you’re overcomplicating something that’s already clear.

As the Zen saying goes, “When you’re walking, just walk.” Sometimes your nervous system is telling you to walk.

6. Run a pre-mortem (and check reversibility)

Overthinking feeds on fear. So let’s give your fear a job.

A pre-mortem is where you imagine the decision failed and list the reasons why. “It’s six months later. This move didn’t work. What went wrong?”

You’ll surface the real worries: “I didn’t have a runway,” “The partner wasn’t aligned,” or “I ignored early feedback.”

Now, take each risk and add a prevention or mitigation. Suddenly you’re not stuck; you’re designing safety nets.

While you’re at it, check reversibility. Is this decision one-way (hard to reverse) or two-way (easy to adjust)?

If it’s two-way, you’re free—decide quickly and refine. If it’s one-way, create a small test to learn before you lock in (see next point).

The philosopher Herbert Simon called this “satisficing,” and entrepreneurship has echoed it for decades: protect the downside, then move.

7. Decide by testing: tiny bets beat big debates

Here’s the single most powerful way I’ve found to beat overthinking: make the decision smaller by turning it into an experiment.

Want to switch industries? Don’t obsess for weeks—run a 20-hour project in that space or take on a short contract.

Can’t pick between two product features? Ship a small A/B test to a subset of users.

Debating whether to start a newsletter? Commit to six issues and reassess.

Tiny bets shrink uncertainty. They also change your identity from “thinker” to “learner.”

The frame shifts from “I must be right” to “I’ll discover what’s right,” which is way kinder on your nervous system.

In mindfulness terms, it’s non-attachment in action: you’re engaged in the process without clinging to the outcome.

When I wrote my first book on Buddhist ideas and modern life, I didn’t decide to be “an author forever.”

I set a limited, clear experiment: write daily for a season, share chapters with readers, and see if it resonated.

That tiny bet changed everything. (And if you’ve followed my work for a while, you know I keep coming back to experimenting as a default stance.)

8. (Bonus) Choose your future regret

On decisions that feel truly 50/50, I ask a different question: “Which choice will I regret not trying?”

This is the regret-minimization lens. It pulls you up to a longer time horizon—five or ten years from now—and asks what future-you will care about.

The mind quiets when you zoom out. You stop comparing micrometrics and start choosing in line with your values.

Sometimes that means picking the safe, steady path because you value stability.

Sometimes it means leaping because you value growth. Either way, overthinking loses power when a deeper value speaks.

Final words

The art of deciding isn’t about predicting perfectly—it’s about reducing noise, choosing in line with your values, and moving forward with humility.

Eastern philosophy calls this non-attachment; psychology calls it satisficing; entrepreneurs call it iterating.

Different languages, same truth: clarity grows with motion.

You don’t need more time to think. You need a lighter process to choose.

Try one of the methods above today, and notice how much energy you reclaim when your mind stops looping and your feet start moving.

Lachlan Brown

Lachlan Brown is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Brown Brothers Media, a digital publishing network reaching tens of millions of readers monthly. He holds a Graduate Diploma of Psychological Studies from Deakin University, though his real education came afterward: a warehouse job shifting TVs, a stretch of anxiety in his mid-twenties, and the slow discovery that studying the mind is not the same as learning how to live well. He started experimenting with Buddhist principles during breaks at the warehouse and eventually began writing about what he was learning. That writing became Hack Spirit, a widely read personal development site, and his book Hidden Secrets of Buddhism became a bestseller. His work breaks down complex ideas into frameworks people can apply immediately, whether they are navigating a career change, a difficult relationship, or the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it. Lachlan splits his time between Singapore and Saigon. He writes about high-performance routines, decision-making under pressure, digital innovation, and the intersection of Eastern philosophy with modern life. His perspective comes from having built things from scratch, failed at some of them, and learned that clarity comes from practice, not theory.