Coaching practices for Clarify Decision Criteria

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Clarify Decision Criteria, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I’m weighing a dozen factors on the same choice I face over and over, and they all blur together
• We keep re-arguing the same decision we already settled weeks ago because no one wrote down what we chose or why
• I sit down to choose and realize I never decided what I actually want first, so whatever options get put in front of me end up defining "good" for me
• I fall hard for an option and then quietly explain away every red flag to keep my favorite alive
• I treat picking a restaurant with the same dread as picking a career, and I genuinely can’t feel the difference between a choice I could undo tomorrow and one I’d be stuck with for years.

Practices that may help

1. Use "take the best": choose on your single most informative cue
   When choosing between options, identify the most diagnostic cue and use it — stop searching for more.
   Simple Heuristics: Gerd Gigerenzer’s Case for Fast and Frugal Thinking
2. Pair the RACI with a decision log
   Knowing who decides is only half the system — recording what was decided closes the accountability loop.
   The RACI Matrix, Made Practical
3. Evaluate each option against your criteria before comparing options to each other
   Score options independently first — so the comparison set can’t retroactively redefine what good looks like.
   The Decoy Effect — How an Irrelevant Option Changes Your Choice
4. Define your disqualifiers in advance
   Before evaluating options, decide what would automatically rule one out.
   Inversion: Solve Problems Backward
5. Classify every decision as one-way or two-way before starting
   Before applying any decision process, ask: can I reverse this if I am wrong?
   The Two-Way Door
6. Log the information you wished you had
   In every decision entry, write: what would I want to know that I don’t?
   Decision Journaling: Learning to Decide Better Over Time
7. Use the 10-year view to check values alignment
   Ask: is the 10-year version of this choice consistent with what I actually care about?
   The 10-10-10 Rule
8. Recognize when contrast is being used on you
   Awareness of the contrast principle is the antidote — evaluate options against an independent standard, not the presented sequence.
   The Contrast Principle, Made Practical
9. Simplify complex choices to prevent comparison fatigue from enabling decoys
   Too many options increase susceptibility to decoys — constrain the comparison set before evaluating.
   The Decoy Effect — How an Irrelevant Option Changes Your Choice
10. Model synergy: ask "what would a solution have to look like to address both?"
    Use the agreed criteria as a design brief and generate solutions that meet all of them.
    The Third Alternative, Made Practical

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