1+1+1: Doors

what if the decision isn't as permanent as it feels?


1+1+1 is a weekly nudge, a creative spark, a shot in the arm to keep you moving. One quote, one question, one poem to get unstuck.

Thanks for reading!

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Thanks to everyone who responded to the survey on decision making. Thank you for sharing your learning! There were many great responses and I appreciate all of them. Later this week in another post I’ll share back a synthesis of themes and insights gathered…hopefully this will be as helpful to you as it has been to me.

Last week, my brilliant friend Colin Macrae said something that caught my attention: “Most decisions are two-way doors. We can go back and re-decide or fix later.”

I loved this metaphor and enthusiastically asked, “Is this your idea?!” He replied, “No. That’s Jeff Bezos.” I was disappointed. I wanted it to be Colin. After looking it up, sure enough, it comes from a 2015 letter to shareholders where Bezos discusses Type 1 and Type 2 Decisions, while sounding like a robot the entire time. I like Colin way better and I like how he puts it, and this is my newsletter, so that’s what we’re going with. Thank you Colin for this idea!

Last week’s newsletter was about how decisions are an act of cutting away options. I also shared this visual essay exploring how decision-making involves death—ending potential paths in order to choose and commit to one.

Again, these aren’t my definitions—they’re rooted in the word itself.

But it’s all a bit dramatic, isn’t it?

Does naming death in decision-making actually help, or does it load up the process for those of us already carrying the weight of the world? Most often the stakes aren’t life or death.

Which is why the Jeff Bezos Colin Macrae doors metaphor is a helpful counter, as it provides some needed nuance. Because decisions are like doorways, aren’t they?

Some are irreversible, like a one-way door that locks behind you. But most decisions are reversible—doors that swing both ways, allowing you to step back if needed.

One-Way Decision Doors

These are the big, life-changing choices that, once made, can’t be undone. These decisions require careful consideration and deliberation. They could include:

• Quitting a job, moving to a new country, starting or ending a long-term relationship, signing a long-term contract

Two-Way Decision Doors

These are the everyday choices that can be reversed if they don’t work out. These decisions require less risk and can be changed with minimal consequences. They could include:

• Trying a new marketing strategy, switching internet providers, signing up for a dance class, choosing a different commute route

Knowing what kind of door you’re in front of matters. Recognizing the difference between reversible and irreversible decisions helps you allocate your time and energy wisely.

If the decision is a one-way door, spending more time and energy on it can increase clarity before walking through it. Evaluating the stakes, gathering feedback, and doing thorough research are all important.

But if the decision is reversible, spending more time and energy on it likely increases anxiety and overthinking before walking through it. A bias to action and validated learning are what’s important.

Understanding that most decisions are changeable can help alleviate the pressure, the fear, and the paralysis by analysis. As Sufjan Stevens sings, (and this is a line I say to myself often), “There's too much, too much, too much, too much riding on that.”

Seeing that most decisions are two-way doors, opens up more adaptability, creativity, risk-taking, and confidence. You can change your mind. You can pivot (you can even keep using this word even though it’s no longer 2020). You can iterate, fail, redo, edit, retry, experiment, and explore. You can re-decided.

Photo by José Alejandro Cuffia on Unsplash

Quote

“The key to making better decisions isn’t to spend more time agonizing over them but to be more willing to change course when you learn new information.”

Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts

Question

If most decisions are reversible and you end up making a less than your best decision, isn’t this great? You won’t have to live with the consequences for long. You can turn around, open up the door, walk back through it and then get on with trying another door.

Are there any two way doors that you’ve been confusing as one way doors?

Poem

Go to the Limits of Your Longing
Book of Hours, I 59

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Joanna Macy

Thanks for reading,

Lance Odegard

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