How to Avoid Overthinking Your "No Brainer" Decisions

Nothing zaps potential like overthinking.

If you think long and hard enough, you’ll be able to find faults with the most obvious, clear-cut decisions to benefit your life.

The decisions where the upside is infinite, and the downside is no big deal.

Yet you can still find yourself overthinking these decisions to the point where they remain ideas for weeks, months, years, and even decades.

This problem is exactly why it’s worth bothering with decision-making frameworks.

A good framework will outsource the logic of deciding an algorithm and eliminate the risk of overthinking yourself out of decisions that can drastically improve your life.

Your “no-brainers.”

Based on my experience of falling victim to the overthinking trap, I’ve developed a handy decision-making framework to prevent overthinking the obvious decisions in life.

I’m going to share it with you.

It’s based on asymmetrical risk vs. reward.

Let’s break that down first.

Asymmetrical Risk vs. Reward

What is a “no-brainer” decision?

It’s a decision where the potential benefits of the best-case scenario outweigh the potential harm of the worst-case scenario.

Infinite upside. Negligible downside.

The asymmetry between the risk and reward in favor of reward makes these choices obvious yesses (no-brainers).

There could also be asymmetry in the opposite way: If you’re faced with a decision that is high risk with a negligible reward, it’s a no-brainer stupid decision.

Don’t do it, dummy.

The third case is more nuanced: the decisions where there is a significant risk and significant reward. These decisions require an extra step.

The “No Brainer” Framework

In computer programming, there’s a concept called “control flow” (don’t worry, I won’t attempt to explain programming to you).

It goes like this:

The No Brainer framework uses asymmetrical risk vs. reward in a control flow context:

It seems simple.

It IS simple.

But it helps because we tend to overthink and blow the risk of decisions out of proportion.

It makes them seem to be symmetrical, non-obvious decisions when they’re actually no-brainers.

When you apply this framework and lay out the best-case scenario vs. the worst-case scenarios, the asymmetry becomes clear, and you’ll see the decision for the no-brainer that it is.

Let’s go over an example:

How many people in this situation never ask the person out because they blow the risk of getting rejected out of proportion?

But let’s break it down side by side.

Best case scenario:

You fall madly in love, get married on a remote beach somewhere, and then buy a farm, where you have five beautiful happy children and create a life and legacy together (and eat farm fresh eggs every day).

Worst case scenario:

You’re embarrassed for 5 minutes and have to find a new coffee shop.

When you objectively look at the best-case and worst-case outcomes, the asymmetry is clear, and you see that not going for it is a stupid choice.

Another example: creating content online.

Best case scenario:

I grow a following over the months and years, am able to monetize as well as connect with people and create content that has an impact.

It becomes a thriving digital asset for my brand and business and opens new doors and opportunities.

Worst case scenario:

It doesn’t take off; I get some haters and eventually pivot and try something else.

The No Brainer framework exists to prevent you from missing these obvious choices in your life.

We blow things out of proportion and make it seem like getting no views, a few haters, or getting rejected is the worst thing that could ever happen.

But when you compare these risks objectively to the potential upside, you see them for what they are: meaningless fear.

That first condition (asymmetrical reward) is the most important.

The second condition is asymmetrical risk: where the potential downside outweights any potential benefits. Being aware of asymmetrical risk prevents stupid, impulsive decisions.

Example:

Say you’re a happily married executive, but the cute new office secretary has made it obvious that she’s available if you’re interested.

Best case scenario:

A few minutes of fun.

Worst case scenario:

Loss of respect from yourself, your family, and your community. An expensive divorce, losing custody of your children, shame, disgrace, etc.

Using the framework for minor decisions is profound as well:

You’re on a diet, but you have the urge to go out with your friends and drink six beers and eat pizza.

Best case scenario:

One fun night.

Worst case scenario:

One more episode in a long list of behavior that prevents you from ever achieving the physique and fitness you dream about.

Viewing small and large decisions through this lens of objective risk to reward can help you be less impulsive and prevent you from procrastinating on meaningful projects for stupid reasons.

But now we have to address the final case — the “else” statement.

Symmetrical Risk to Reward

These are the choices where there is a significant reward AND significant risk.

These are not no-brainer decisions; these are the difficult, complex life choices we all encounter.

The best example I can think of is deciding to quit a cushy job to go all-in on your own business.

For this, we’re going to bust out a new framework.

The meta-framework (framework within a framework) comes from a guy who contemplated this exact decision.

You may have heard of him; he had a hunch that this internet thing had promise and that it could be cool to sell things on it.

He quit his cushy job on Wall Street to build a company that would sell books on the internet, and turned it into one of the most successful companies in history.

His name is Jeff Bezos, and the framework he used to help put this decision in context is the Regret Minimization Framework.

Most standard societal advice is optimizing for the minimization of discomfort.

These are considered smart choices because they increase the chances that you’ll be able to provide for your family and live a comfortable, stable life.

The Regret Minimization framework is where you optimize for the minimization of regret over discomfort. You guarantee a temporary increase in discomfort when you take this route.

It’s easy to apply:

The conclusion Jeff came to was that no failure could compete with wondering, “what if?”

I’m not suggesting that you should always go with the risky decision or optimize for the avoidance of regret.

That’s up to you and will depend on your personality and your values.

But the regret minimization framework is what you apply to the final condition of symmetrical risk vs. reward.

The final framework looks like this:

There you have it.

I hope this can help put some of your “no-brainer” decisions into context.

Do you have any?

Let me know in the comments.