You have to make a decision by tomorrow and you still can't choose

Do these five things tonight, in this order

1. Size it in two minutes. Write the decision in one sentence. Then three words. Undo: easy, costly or no? Matters: will you still feel it in a year? Due: the real hour, not the scary one.
2. Set the budget. Easy to undo and small: decide in the next ten minutes. Hard to undo and big: use what is left of tonight for one real fact, then decide.
3. Write your default. "Still undecided at 9 a.m.? Then the answer is yes." Pick a default you could live with. Now the deadline cannot trap you.
4. Get one new fact, or admit you have enough. One call, one text with a specific question, one look at the number you have been avoiding. If you cannot name one, write "enough."
5. If two good options still tie, flip a coin. Then notice your first reaction.

That last step has rules. More on those below.

It is 10:40 p.m. and the answer is due at nine

You told them you would let them know by tomorrow. That felt like plenty of time on Monday.

You have the two tabs open. You have the notes. You asked two people and got two answers. Every time you lean one way, the other side pulls you back.

And under all of it is a quiet thought you would not say out loud. If this goes wrong, it will be your fault, because you had all week.

You do not need a week tonight. You need a way to stop.

Why sizing it first saves you

Most overthinkers give every choice the same weight. A paint color gets the care of a career.

The book's Two-Minute Triage asks three things: can you undo it, does it matter, when is it due. Your answers set a time budget. The book badges it STORY ONLY. The undo question comes from a business letter by Jeff Bezos, not from an experiment, and nobody has tested the three questions as a set. Still, we think it is the right first move tonight, because it tells you whether this deserves ten minutes or the whole evening.

Writing a default comes from the next card, Set the Deadline Now (PROMISING). Its evidence is small but clean. In a 2010 study by Suzanne Shu and Ayelet Gneezy, 31 percent of people with a three-week gift card used it, against 6 percent of people with two months. That was 64 people and a slice of cake, not a hard choice. The book also notes that a more famous deadline study from 2002 was retracted, so it leaves that one out.

The coin flip, done the honest way

The coin is not a way to skip the hard part. It is for the end, when you have truly thought enough.

First check. Both options must be ones you could live with. Put the coin away if one option is clearly worse, or if safety, money you cannot afford to lose or someone else's welfare is at stake.

1. Give heads to one option and tails to the other. Say it out loud.
2. Flip. While it is in the air, notice what you are hoping for.
3. When it lands, notice your first reaction: relief, or a small sinking feeling.
4. Relief: go with the coin. Sinking: take the other option. No feeling either way: let the coin decide.
5. Write the decision and the time. You are done.

In two small online studies by Jaffé, Reutner and Greifeneder, people who used a coin felt a stronger sense of what they wanted right after the toss. They did not just obey it. The coin worked as a catalyst. The study used restaurant dishes, so the book badges the tool PROMISING, not more.

The bigger study is Steven Levitt's online coin flip. People stuck on a major change were more likely to make it when the coin said so, and reported more happiness six months later. They chose to visit his site and rated their own happiness, which Levitt flagged himself.

In the morning, close it

Once you send the answer, the work changes. The urge to reread the other tab will come. That is normal, and it is not a sign you chose wrong.

Write one line: what you chose, the facts you had and how sure you were as a percent. If it goes badly later, that line protects you from the voice that says you should have known.

Where Done Deciding comes in

This is the problem Done Deciding was written for, at its most urgent.

How Big Is This, Really? Give Each Decision the Time It Actually Deserves has the Two-Minute Triage and Set the Deadline Now, with a worked example of a bakery owner who spent three evenings on a menu board and twenty minutes on a five-year lease.

Small Decisions, Fast: Three Ways to Stop Giving Little Choices Big-Decision Energy has the full Coin Flip card, plus a good-enough bar you write before you look at options.

If tomorrow goes badly, read bad decision or bad luck before you judge yourself.