Introduction
Making decisions is hard. I mean, it’s not like you can just go up to someone and say “Hey, do you want to get dinner?” or “Which movie should we watch tonight?” But when it comes to business decisions and everyday life, science has shown that there are some techniques that help us make better choices. In this article I will explore some of those techniques so you can learn how to improve your decision-making skills!Take Notes and Summarize.
Taking notes and summarizing key points is one of the most effective ways to improve your decision-making skills.- Take notes as you read. It’s important that your notes are easy to read, so try using a consistent format for your notes. You could use bullet points or numbers (1., 2., 3.), but making sure that everything looks neat and orderly will help you stay focused on what’s important when it comes time for studying!
- Summarize key points in your notes. Once again, this will help ensure that nothing gets lost in translation between reading something and writing down what was learned from it–and who knows? Maybe if there’s enough time left over after taking good notes while reading materials related to improving decision making skills then maybe even some “extra credit” activities like this one could become possible too!
Make Lists and Concepts.
- Make lists of the key points you want to remember.
- Create concepts for each point, then write down these concepts under each heading in your notes or on a mindmap.
- Use a concept map or mindmap to help organize your ideas and see how they relate to one another (see “Mind Mapping” below).
Use mnemonic devices to remember key points.
Mnemonic devices are a great way to remember key points. They include acronyms, rhymes and other memory tricks. Use these methods to help you remember:- Visual aids such as diagrams or charts will make it easier for you to recall information later on in your studies.
- Use your imagination when trying to memorize something by making up an image which relates directly with what you’re trying to learn (e.g., if you need help remembering what happens inside the digestive system of a cow, imagine seeing cows eating grass).
Create relationships between ideas in your notes.
- Create relationships between ideas in your notes.
- The best way to do this is by creating a mind map of the main points, which will help you remember them more easily and make connections between them easier to see. For example, if one idea is about how a particular decision was made based on data from an experiment and another idea is about how another person made a similar decision based on intuition alone, then it would be helpful for you to connect these two ideas together so that when you’re studying or trying to make decisions later on in life (or even just while working on this assignment), they come up again together at some point in time because they were connected before!
Use index cards to organize information into groups, then move the groups around until they are in the best order.
- Use a system to organize your notes.
- Make sure you have a system for organizing the groups of cards.
- Make sure you have a system for moving the groups of cards around.
Stop studying when you feel like you know the material well enough and take a break.
When you feel like you have learned the material well enough, take a break. The longer you study without taking breaks and resting your mind, the more likely it is that you will become fatigued and start to make mistakes. If this happens, go ahead and take a break! You will retain more information if you take frequent breaks during your study sessions than if you don’t take any breaks at all. If possible, try not to study for more than 30 minutes before taking some time away from studying (for example: having lunch). Afterward, return to studying until another 30 minutes has passed before taking another break of roughly equal length (again: having lunch).- How long should these breaks last? It depends on what works best for each person–but generally speaking 10-15 minutes should suffice for most people’s needs in terms of getting away from their desks/books/notebooks/etcetera so that they can refresh themselves mentally before returning back into their studies again later on down the road when needed.*
