You have two options. Both are fine. You've been going back and forth for an hour, or maybe a week, and you're no closer to deciding. That's analysis paralysis: thinking so hard about a choice that you can't make it.
It happens to almost everyone, and it's especially common with yes-or-no decisions, where there are only two answers and you'd expect it to be easy. Here's why it happens, and some simple ways out.
What is analysis paralysis?
Analysis paralysis is when the effort of weighing a decision grows bigger than the decision itself. You gather more information, list more pros and cons, ask more people, and every new thought becomes another reason to wait. Meanwhile nothing gets decided, and the waiting has costs of its own: stress, lost time and missed chances.
It isn't a lack of intelligence or willpower. Careful, conscientious people are often the most prone to it, because they care about getting things right.
Why yes-or-no decisions are harder than they look
- Both options are close. If one choice were clearly better, you'd have taken it already. Being stuck is often a sign that the two options are about equally good.
- Fear of regret. Saying yes means giving up no, and the other way round. Doing nothing can feel safer than either, even when it isn't.
- Too much information. Past a certain point, more research doesn't make the answer clearer. It just gives you more to weigh.
- No deadline. Without a cut-off, there's always a reason to think about it a little longer.
There's also the famous jam study. In a 2000 paper, psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper reported that shoppers who stopped at a table of 6 jams were far more likely to buy one than shoppers who stopped at a table of 24: about 30% compared with 3%. Later research found that this kind of choice overload shows up in some situations and not others, but the everyday lesson holds. More options and more analysis don't always make choosing easier.
Signs you're overthinking it
- You keep researching, but your answer hasn't changed in days.
- You're asking a third or fourth person for their opinion.
- You could argue the case for both options in your sleep.
- The decision is easy to undo, but you're treating it as permanent.
- You're more tired of thinking about it than worried about getting it wrong.
Five ways to break analysis paralysis
1. Ask whether the choice can be undone
Jeff Bezos famously split decisions into one-way doors and two-way doors. A one-way door is hard to walk back through, like signing a long contract or quitting a job. A two-way door isn't: trying a new gym, picking a restaurant, saying yes to a weekend away. Most everyday decisions are two-way doors, and for those, deciding quickly matters more than deciding perfectly. Save your careful thinking for the rare one-way doors.
2. Set a deadline and a default
Give yourself a time limit, such as tonight or by Friday, and decide now what happens if you still can't choose by then. The default can be the safe option or the exciting one. What matters is that the decision gets made.
3. Shrink it to one question
Big decisions are often several small ones tangled together. Pull out the one question you're actually stuck on, and phrase it so it can be answered with a yes or a no.
4. Flip a coin and notice how you feel
This is the oldest trick there is, and it works for a surprising reason. Give yes to heads and no to tails, then flip. In the second before the coin lands, many people find they're hoping for one side. If you feel relief at the result, go with it. If you feel disappointed, you've just found out what you really wanted, so do that instead.
5. Let chance decide, for real
If the options really are equal, letting chance pick is a perfectly sensible strategy, and there's research behind it. In a large online experiment, economist Steven Levitt asked people who were stuck on a big decision, such as quitting a job or ending a relationship, to let a virtual coin toss help them choose. People the coin told to make a change were much more likely to make it, and six months later they were happier than people the coin told to keep things as they were. Levitt's conclusion was that people may be too cautious when facing life-changing choices.
That doesn't mean a coin should run your life. It means that when you've honestly weighed both sides and they still come out even, the cost of picking either one is small, while the cost of not picking keeps growing.
When not to leave it to chance
Random choices are for decisions between options you'd genuinely be happy with. Don't use them when one option could hurt you or someone else, when there's a clear right answer you're avoiding, or when the stakes are high and you haven't yet gathered the basic facts. For those, talk it through with someone you trust, or with a professional.
Make deciding a habit
Analysis paralysis gets easier to beat with practice. Start with small decisions, like what to eat, which film to watch or which task to do first, and make them quickly. Our decision tools can help, from the Magic 8 Ball for a quick answer to wheels for what to eat and what to watch. The more often you decide fast on small things, the easier it gets to decide well on big ones.