How Do You Make Decisions? Lets change how you do what you do | by Sawan Kumar | Best Career Coach

A reliable decision making framework separates professionals who advance quickly from those who stay stuck in analysis paralysis. After coaching thousands of students and building multiple businesses across consulting, education, and real estate, I have distilled the exact process I use to make high-stakes decisions with confidence.

Direct Answer: The most effective decision making framework combines three elements: defining your non-negotiables upfront, setting a hard deadline for the decision, and committing to a 90-day review rather than endless pre-decision research. This approach eliminates overthinking while ensuring you capture learning from every choice you make.

Why Most People Struggle With Decision Making

The biggest mistake I see professionals make is treating every decision like it carries equal weight. They spend three weeks choosing project management software but make career-defining moves on gut instinct alone. This inconsistency creates two problems: decision fatigue on trivial matters and reckless speed on consequential ones.

In my experience training over 79,000 students globally, the pattern is consistent. High performers batch small decisions using simple rules, then slow down deliberately for choices that compound over years. Low performers do the opposite — they agonise over lunch orders and impulse-buy into business partnerships.

The 3-Filter Decision Making Framework

Every decision I make runs through three filters before I commit. This system works whether you are choosing a career pivot, a real estate investment, or a technology stack for your business.

Filter 1: The Non-Negotiable Test

Before evaluating options, write down your three non-negotiables. These are conditions that must be true regardless of how attractive other factors appear. For a job decision, your non-negotiables might be: minimum salary of AED 25,000, no more than 45 minutes commute, and remote work at least two days per week.

Any option that fails even one non-negotiable gets eliminated immediately. No exceptions. This single step cuts most decision trees in half within five minutes.

Filter 2: The 10-10-10 Rule

For options that pass the non-negotiable test, ask three questions: How will I feel about this decision 10 minutes from now? 10 months from now? 10 years from now? This framework, popularised by business writer Suzy Welch, forces you to weigh immediate discomfort against long-term trajectory.

Most people overweight the 10-minute feeling. They avoid difficult conversations, delay necessary pivots, and stay in comfortable situations that slowly erode their potential. The 10-year lens corrects this bias.

Filter 3: The Reversibility Check

Classify every decision as either a one-way door or a two-way door. One-way doors — selling a business, signing a 10-year lease, accepting equity in lieu of salary — deserve weeks of analysis. Two-way doors — hiring a contractor, testing a marketing channel, trying a new software tool — deserve hours at most.

Jeff Bezos built Amazon's speed advantage on this distinction. Most decisions are two-way doors disguised as one-way doors by fear.

How to Apply This Framework in Real Estate Decisions

Real estate exemplifies high-stakes decision making because the numbers are large, the timelines are long, and emotions run high. Here is how I apply the framework when advising clients or making my own property decisions.

Non-negotiables for property investment: positive cash flow from month one (no speculative appreciation bets), location within established infrastructure corridors, and exit liquidity within 90 days if needed.

10-10-10 application: The initial paperwork headache (10 minutes) fades quickly. The rental income stream (10 months) provides consistent returns. The asset appreciation and passive income (10 years) compounds into generational wealth.

Reversibility check: Buying property is a two-way door in liquid markets like Dubai — you can sell within weeks if circumstances change. Buying in illiquid secondary markets is closer to a one-way door and deserves proportionally more diligence.

The Deadline Principle: Why Speed Beats Perfection

Set a hard deadline for every decision before you begin evaluating. Without a deadline, research expands to fill available time, and available time is infinite.

For decisions under AED 10,000 impact: 24 hours maximum. For decisions between AED 10,000 and AED 100,000: one week maximum. For decisions above AED 100,000: 30 days maximum, with a scheduled decision meeting on day 30 regardless of information gaps.

Information has diminishing returns. The difference between 70% certainty and 90% certainty often costs months of delay while the opportunity window closes. As a Chartered Accountant who has analysed thousands of business decisions, I can confirm: the spreadsheet is never complete, the market never stops moving, and perfect information is a myth.

Building Your Personal Decision Journal

The highest-leverage habit I recommend is maintaining a decision journal. Before making any significant choice, write down: the decision, your reasoning, the alternatives you rejected, and your confidence level (1-10).

Review the journal quarterly. You will discover patterns in your decision making that no amount of theory can reveal. Maybe you consistently overestimate your risk tolerance. Maybe you undervalue optionality. Maybe your 10-10-10 analysis skews pessimistic at 10 years.

This feedback loop accelerates decision quality faster than any framework alone. The journal makes your thinking visible, and visible thinking improves.

Common Decision Making Mistakes to Avoid

• Consensus seeking: Asking five people for opinions generates five perspectives and zero clarity. Seek advice from one or two people who have made the exact decision you face and lived with the consequences.
• Sunk cost anchoring: What you have already invested is gone. The only relevant question is whether future investment yields future returns.
• Optionality hoarding: Keeping options open feels safe but costs real money in delayed commitment and half-measures. Decide, commit, execute, review.
• Outcome bias: Good decisions can produce bad outcomes, and bad decisions can produce good outcomes. Judge your decisions by the process, not the result.

Your Next Step

The decision making framework only works when you use it consistently. Pick one pending decision you have been avoiding, run it through the three filters today, set a deadline no longer than 72 hours, and commit to a 90-day review. Start with the process — the results follow.