Sometimes, when you’re faced with a tough decision, you find yourself paralyzed and unable to take the next step. These decision-making apps will help you figure out the right choice in any situation.
We already have a few websites that make decisions for you when it comes to specific situations, like what to eat for dinner or what to watch on Netflix. But those sites don’t allow you to pose your own unique problem.
So when you need to ask someone to help you pick between two outfits, or make a major life decision, these are the sites and apps that will guide you towards the right pick.
1. Decisionize (Web): See How Decisions Affect Your Goals
Decision paralysis often comes in because you can’t actually see the end result clearly. Decisionize turns your choices into an equation that helps you realize how much impact could be achieved by each choice.
It’s a three step process. In the first step, you write down all the multiple choices that you are facing.
In the second step, write the pros and cons of all those choices. Also, the emoji you choose indicates how good or bad it is. In fact, you could go a step further and add general goals and results you want to achieve.
In the third step, in a series of slides, rate how each decision could affect a pro or a con. Judge them on three metrics: none, some, and yes.
After you’re done, Decisionize will calculate each answer and turn it into a score. The final score indicates the decision you will be most happy with while balancing the pros and cons.
2. Pros & Cons (Android): Make a Pros and Cons List With Points
The age-old, tried-and-tested method to simplify a decision is to make a pros and cons list. This app is a modern take on it, adding points or a rating to each pro and con that makes your decision easier.
Create a new decision that you are struggling with, and add your current mood based on the emojis. Then, you simply start adding pros and cons, each of which has a rating on a 10-point scale.
For cons, you rate them from Not Bad to Very Bad.
For pros, you rate them from Not Important to Very Important. The weightage makes it intriguing as it doesn’t just count the number of items, but estimates how much those items matter.
Once you have filled as many pros and cons as you can think of, go to the next step, where the app will tally the results. You’ll see what you chose, how much weightage you gave it, and a final points count of your Pros and Cons. And there you have it, you know what your decision should be.
Download: Pros & Cons for Android (Free)
3. Pollsify (Android, iOS): Create Polls or Give Your Opinions
Pollsify is one of the simplest apps to create a poll and share it with your friends, or with the public at large to get opinions. You can create both public and private polls, which are automatically tallied.
In each poll, you can ask a question and attach a GIF or an image, take a photo, or pin a location.
Polls can be two types: multiple choice text or emojis.
Text is the more traditional way to take a poll, allowing you up to eight different options for a single question. The emoji poll is a cool alternative too, as you can get a simple thumbs up or thumbs down, or have emojis that mean enthusiasm or disgust.
While you wait for your poll to get results, you can hop into the public Pollsify feed to see questions others have posed for the general user base. Tap along to give your opinion. Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple comments box to get more from participants.
Download: Pollsify for Android | iOS (Free)
4. r/MakeMyChoice (Web): Let Strangers Make Your Decision
Sometimes, no amount of pros and cons lists or rational arguments can help you come to a conclusion. You might just need someone else to make the decision for you. Fear not, you don’t need to go to your friends, for you can instead get a stranger on the internet to make the choice for you.
From the mundane to the life-changing, the r/MakeMyChoice subreddit is full of benevolent souls ready to share the burden of decision-making.
Create a new post, state your dilemma, and let these netizens choose what you should do, while offering their own unique perspectives and reasons.
It sounds a bit silly, but there is some logic to this.
First, there is the thrill of adventure to letting someone else decide for you, and going with the flow. But more than that, it also helps you see things from a different point of view, and figure out why you should or shouldn’t be doing something. Your own pros and cons will be limited to how you think, and a fresh perspective might tilt the balance.
5. Wheel Decide (Web): Spin the Wheel to Pick a Choice
“What do you want for lunch?”
‘I don’t know, you pick.’
“I’m okay with anything, you decide.”
If you’ve had quite enough of these everyday passive non-arguments, let Wheel Decide make the choice for you. It’s time to spin the wheel and let fate and chance have its say.
The web app is exactly what you’d expect. Type up to 100 choices in the fields, and give your wheel a title. The advanced options have plenty of tweaks. For example, you can remove any choice after it is picked once by the wheel. You can also specify how long to spin that wheel, and even embed it on a web page.
The new wheel automatically adds colors, although you can customize those too if you want. Log in with Facebook to save any wheels you create, so you can use them regularly for recurring decisions, like what to order for lunch at the office.
Wheel Decide is a pretty cool way to make a decision at random so that no person gets the blame in case there is any decision regret later.
Make Decisions and Settle Arguments
Through the tools in this article, you should be able to make every sort of decision, from nuanced arguments that evaluate your options and their results, to leaving things to chance. Plus, they are all free, and they don’t need much time either.
There are other similar free websites to settle arguments and make decisions. Some of them let you flip a virtual coin to pick heads or tails, while others randomize lists or pick a name at random from a virtual hat. Hey, anything that gets you out of decision paralysis is a good thing, right?
Read the full article: 5 Decision-Making Apps to Help You Pick the Right Choice
