An analytical approach to decision making

 

First of all: Happy New Month's Eve! Today's post was going to be about celebration and one of the things I wanted to celebrate was that I blogged every day this month! But..  I'll save that post for tomorrow.

Today, I want to talk about decision making!

We make decisions constantly.  Most of those are such easy decisions that we don't even think about it. In fact, habits and mindsets can help us not waste too much energy on decisions.  Instead of deciding if we're going to exercise or not, for example, if we get in the habit of exercising on certain days, we can free our mind of that decision (except for those days we hit the snooze button).

Also, the Agile approach is to experiment and take action, learn from that action and adjust.  You don't stress as much about short-term decisions and you aim to do things that are not permanent and learn as you go.  If something doesn't go as planned, you try a Plan B option.

That's all great in theory, but sometimes we need to make a decision that's more or less permanent and/or very expensive.  That's especially nerve-wracking when it affects our health.

Since this month is Women's Eye Health and Safety Month, I decided to celebrate by stressing out all month about my eyes.

I've really been going back and forth on trying to decide what what kind of lenses I want to get when I get my cataract surgeries.  

I like to make data-driven decisions and gather as much information as possible before making a major health-related decision.  There are almost always unknowns and risks that need to be factored in.

I became quite the "high-maintenance" patient and had a very long email thread with my ophthalmologist.  To his credit, he was very responsive and if he was impatient with me, it wasn't too apparent (though he probably used the phrase, "there's no way of knowing" a few more times than he wanted.)

I also talked to another unbiased very helpful ophthalmologist (my friend, Adam's brother, David) as well as the boyfriend of a friend who had recent standard cataract surgery.

And, of course, I did all the usual searching on the Internet to try and gather information.

I asked my very analytical daughter-in-law, Stella, to help me think through the different factors affecting my decision.  Together we created this spreadsheet. 

 

We listed the factors that were affecting the decision and then used weighted numbers (0 to 10). The lower numbers indicate more risk or concern, so we are looking for an overall high score as the best alternative.

In the end, I recognized that the LAL's ability to adjust post-surgery was the biggest factor in this decision for me. If I got the standard surgery, I would have better far vision, but worse near vision with no ability to adjust.

I was nervous about getting "mini-mono" (dominant eye far vision / non-dominant eye intermediate vision) because I felt nervous about any kind of "mono" vision being permanent.  However, if I get the LAL, we'll be able to adjust 5-weeks post-surgery (until the lock-in), so it's the least "permanent" option.

It is more expensive and it will mean having to wear UV glasses for those 5 weeks post-surgery, and I know I'll be nervous until the final lock-in, but, in the end, the LAL mini-mono seems to be the best option for me.

There are still risks but I feel like I've really done my homework of understanding the pros and cons and I'm making the best decision I can make under the circumstances.

Decision made! Another thing to celebrate!