​

Reader,

​

If you read my last newsletter, you know that my water heater broke.

So we got it replaced, and now everything should be fine, right?

Not quite.

My wonderful husband ran point on coordinating with the plumber to get the new water heater installed and have the old one taken away.

Then I got this text.

It's true. Every single time the plumber has come, he's commented on how old the pipes are in this house. (Our house was built over 100 years ago.)

But how much money are we talking about here?

Ugh. That is a lot.

From there, my planner-mind started thinking through all that would need to be done to make that happen: call around to get second opinions and alternate estimates, look at our finances, ask how such a project would impact our ability to live in the house...

WAIT. Back up. I had gone straight into planning without critically thinking through the decision at hand.

What was the decision I was facing?

I had run with "How and when do we pursue this project?"

But really, I should have taken a moment to explore other FRAMES for this decision.

One of the most impactful steps in improving decision quality is to take time to ensure you're focusing on the right decision, and sometimes the right decision to focus on isn't necessarily the first one we think it is.

One way to think about decision framing is to ask yourself:

What is a GIVEN?

What should be decided LATER?

What needs to be decided NOW?

Another way of thinking about it is:

What is upstream from this decision, i.e. what are the things that have already been decided that flow into this decision?

What is downstream from this decision, i.e. what are the things that are best decided after the current decision is made?

"How and when do we pursue this project?" only makes sense to decide IF it's a given that we've decided to pursue the project of replacing the pipes.

We hadn't actually made that decision, yet.

Ok, so now I'm thinking the key decision is "Do we want to replace our pipes?"

To get more specific, I revised that to "Do we want to replace our pipes in the very near future?"

I'm getting closer to the real decision to be made, but something still felt off. I was setting up a binary choice: Do we or don't we?

How do I frame this decision to allow for more options? The key was to narrow in on what really mattered.

For that, I tuned into my feelings about what was happening. What did I find attractive about replacing the pipes? What made me lean into it?

I want to keep our home livable, prevent catastrophic damage to our home and avoid other problems that may prove to be more costly than what it would take to replace the pipes.

What made me concerned about replacing the pipes? Cost.

Alright, I'm seeing that some of the key things I care about: livability, preventing damage, and avoiding unnecessary expenses.

So really, the decision at hand was about "What investment(s) make sense in the near future to maintain livability and prevent damage to our home?"

Once I settled on that, I realized this was not just about plumbing, but other ways we could improve our home with our money. It also helped me hone in on the types of questions I wanted to ask and the type of information I would need to make the investment in replacing the pipes make sense.

Have you ever jumped headfirst into a decision, only to wonder later whether you were focusing on the right decision?

Next time, take a moment to explore what the most useful decision frame may be with these 4 questions:

What has already been decided?

What makes sense to decide later?

What do you really care about?

What does that mean for what needs to be decided now?

​

Hit reply and let me know which one of these questions you think will make the biggest difference in your decision making.

​

Best,

Michelle

​