Eyes Wide Open

How to Make Smart Decisions in a Confusing World

HarperBusiness, 2013

15 min read

10 take-aways

Audio & text

What's inside?

Good lives depend on good decisions, and bad decisions can lead to living a bad life.

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Recommendation

Good lives depend on good decisions; bad decisions can send lives on a downturn. University College London professor Noreena Hertz is here to help you make better decisions. She provides solid information about the decision-making process, buttressed with practical advice about making informed choices. Hertz supplies fascinating examples from science about how people make decisions and provides colorful anecdotes about their choices. Her tutorial is easy to understand and also fun to read. Each chapter is jam-packed with numerous great tips on how to decide when you must. Since everyone has to make choices and wants to do it well, getAbstract finds that buying Hertz’s book is a good decision.

Summary

People make more than 10,000 decisions every day. Most are trivial, but some may have enormous – even life and death – consequences. Poor decisions can hurt you and your family, your colleagues, your company, and your community or nation, depending on your position. The effects of bad decisions can linger for years and even for lifetimes.

Making better choices requires understanding your decision-making processes. To empower good choices, you need to learn how to find, filter and process the right information. This includes determining which experts you should trust and how to evaluate their opinions. And it calls for noting your emotions so they do not cloud your judgment. Follow these 10 steps to make the best possible decisions:

1. Come to “Grips with a World in Hyper-Drive”

Today, people drown in data. Information – and disinformation – is everywhere. In 2008, people had to deal with 300% more information than in 1960. “These days, we spend three-quarters of our waking lives receiving information.” Within a few years, people will generate more than 40 times the information they create today.

But the human body is a stone-age entity, as is the human ...

About the Author

Noreena Hertz, Professor at the Centre for the Study of Decision-Making at University College London, is a leading expert on strategy, data and decision-making.

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G. B. 1 decade ago

This summary offers a somewhat obvious list of 10 or so points, but does not fulfill the promise of the subtitle: How to Make Smart Decisions...

Think of a recipe that only lists the ingredients and gives no clue on what to do with them to cook up that delicious delight. Here we are presented with some things to think about, and some nice examples, but nothing really to suggest a process for good decision making.

Noreena Hertz