You keep overthinking a big decision. Is something wrong with you?

It is the third week, and the list has not changed

You have a spreadsheet. Or a note on your phone. Option A on the left, Option B on the right. You add a line most nights.

You have asked four friends. They split two and two. You read one more article. You feel a little surer, then less sure by morning.

Here is the thought you will not say out loud. Maybe you are just bad at this. You are not. You are doing exactly what feels like care. It just is not working anymore.

Why one more fact keeps feeling like the answer

Each new fact gives you a small hit of confidence. That is the trap. A 2008 study the book cites found that more information raised people's confidence faster than it raised how often they were right.

So the research feels useful. You feel you are closing in. But past a certain point, you are trading time for comfort.

The other trap is wanting the very best option. A 2006 study of 548 job seekers found that students who hunted hardest for the best job got higher starting pay. They were also less happy with what they took, and more stressed along the way. The paper is called "Doing better but feeling worse."

First, find out which kind of door this is

Not every big choice is a forever choice. Ask one plain question. If this goes wrong, can you undo it? Write how, how long it would take and roughly what it would cost.

If undoing it is cheap, it is a two-way door. Set a deadline this week and decide. Then write the first warning sign you would see if you were wrong, and the date you will look for it.

If undoing it is very costly, it is a one-way door. Those deserve real time. But "real time" still needs an edge. List the facts you wish you had. Mark each one: have it, can get it by Friday, or cannot get it soon. Cross out any fact that would not change your choice. What is left is your actual to-do list. The rest was worry.

We like that this sort is honest about itself. The book labels it STORY ONLY. It comes from one CEO's letter and has never been tested as a method. It is a rule of thumb, and a good one.

Set the bar before the options start talking

The second move works when you have too many choices, not too few. Before you look again, write three to five must-haves. A price ceiling. A distance. A feature. Then write how many options you will check, at most.

Take the first one that clears every bar. If none do, lower one bar a little and write down which one and why.

This idea is old. Herbert Simon named it "satisficing" in 1956. It does not mean settling. It means choosing a standard, then meeting it. The book is careful here too: nobody has shown in a trial that this makes people happier. But the pattern in the studies points that way.

When fear is doing most of the talking

A lot of overthinking is fear of choosing wrong. For a choice with a strong feeling attached, the book has a ten-minute card called 10/10/10. It carries a PROMISING badge.

1. Write the decision and your two or three options at the top of a page.
2. Draw three columns: 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years.
3. For each option, write one honest line in each column. How will you feel, and what will actually be different?
4. Circle the strongest feeling on the page. Note which column it sits in.
5. Ask: is that feeling still there in the 10-year column? If not, it is loud but short-lived. Weigh it, but do not let it vote alone.
6. Check the 10-minute column once more for real costs, like a broken promise or a hurt friend. Those count even if they fade.
7. Choose, and write one sentence on which column decided it.

No study has tested 10/10/10 itself. What has been tested is the idea under it. In seven studies published in 2015, Bruehlman-Senecal and Ayduk found that picturing the far future made a recent worry feel less upsetting. A 2014 study by Grossmann and Kross with 693 people found that stepping back from your own problem led to wiser reasoning.

After you choose, close the door

Many people find the doubt does not stop once they decide. That does not mean you chose wrong.

The book points to a 2002 study by Daniel Gilbert and Jane Ebert. Photography students picked one print to keep. Some were told the choice was final. Others could swap later. The ones who could swap liked their print less. Yet most people said they would rather keep the option open.

So for a choice you want to live with, like a home or a job, it can help to treat it as final on purpose. Stop rereading the list. Close the tabs. For a test at work that you can roll back, keep the door open and watch your warning sign instead.

The chapters that pick this up

This is the problem Mental Models That Actually Work was written for.

One-Way and Two-Way Doors gives you the door sort and a second card, Decide at "Enough," for the choice you keep putting off. It also explains what Bezos's 70 percent line does and does not say.

Good Enough: When to Stop Searching and Choose has the must-haves card and a stopping rule for options that come one at a time, like flats to rent.

Regret: Choosing Now So You Can Live With It Later has the 10/10/10 card for when a strong feeling is doing most of the talking. It helps you see which feelings fade by next month and which will still be there in ten years.

If the choice is a plan you are about to launch, our page on running a pre-mortem is the next step.