Use this flowchart to make tough decisions easierPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Not to freak you out or anything, but were already 6.12% of our way through 2025Issue #252: birthright citizenship, God writes a novel, and giving yourself permission to put down the weightBy Harris SockelYoure way more resilient than you think, writes Mark Shrime, MD, PhD in one of the best stories Ive read recently about decision making, even when you make bad decisions.Weve touched on the art of deciding a few times in this newsletter. A quick recap:Every decision you make will be imperfect, so how you make decisions matters more than what you decide youll learn more by committing to something and seeing how it feels than sitting in a quiet room trying to assess everything perfectly.Humans tend to be loss-averse: We avoid decisions because were afraid of giving up what we have, even if what we stand to gain could serve us better over time.Beware of defaults! Adherence to the status quo is itself a decision, though were not trained to think of it as one.Enter: surgeon Shrime, author of Solving for Why: A Surgeons Journey to Discover the Transformative Power of PurposeChair of Surgery at Irelands Royal College of Surgeons, I imagine at least part of the curriculum involves decision-making. A surgeon must make split-second life-or-death decisions based on a combination of training, experience, and intuition. On Medium, Shrime extends those lessons into evergreen advice for all sorts of situations. He recommends setting a series of staggered deadlines instead of just one, for example. He advises letting your anxiety point you toward what you truly care about. And, a little gift for my indecisive brain: He draws decision-making flowcharts like this:Image credit: Mark Shrime, Its never the right time heres how to know when to act anywayYou can view the entire chart here. It culminates in a mathematical equation weighing your choices against your values. I tried it recently and while it wasnt easy, it forced me to write down my top three values (relevant to the decision) in one sentence each a decision-making step many of us skip. Worth bookmarkingFrom the archive: Genealogist Andre Kearns finds two of his great-great-great grandfathers mentioned in 150-year-old newspapers, and pens a tribute to how they fought for and benefited from birthright citizenship the right of anyone born on U.S. soil to become a citizen after the U.S. Civil War.Routine is a form of self-hypnosis Every time we abide our routine we put a stone in the path to the place we are trying to reach. Laura Van Den Berg (Fight Week)A reminder that writing is actually harder than creating the Earth, sea, sun, and stars. (Rachel Reyes) A dose of much-needed wisdomYoure not broken, and youre not hopeless. Youve just been carrying a load you didnt realize you could put down. Put down the things! Its almost Friday. (Paddy Murphy)