Partners, bad options and choices that went wrong

When the decision is shared. If a choice changes your partner's life too, you can't settle it alone with a date and a coin. The method still works, used together. Write the musts separately first, then compare the lists. Most long disagreements about a move or a purchase turn out to be disagreements about musts that nobody has said aloud. Agree a date together. If you're the slower of the two, be fair about what your waiting costs the other person. If your partner is the one in the loop, pressing them rarely helps. Asking "what would you need to know, and who could tell us?" sometimes does.

When other people depend on it. If you're choosing a school, or care for a parent, or anything else that falls on someone who can't choose for themselves, it feels as if no amount of care could be too much. But the default falls on them as well. A child who waits a year while you compare schools has lost a year. Take advice from people who know, give it the time a large decision deserves, and set the date.

When every option is bad. Sometimes the loop goes on because you're hoping for an option that doesn't hurt, and there isn't one. Every choice loses you something. You might have to pick which debt to pay, or which job to leave, or which relative to disappoint. Going round won't produce a painless fourth option. The question to ask is which loss you can best live with, and the default is likely to be the worst of them because it goes on longest. Money and legal trouble often have more options than you can see from inside, so it's worth getting advice first. Citizens Advice is free.

When the decision is large and can't be undone. Slow down on purpose. Get professional advice where it exists. Sleep on it, more than once. Talk to someone who has lived with each outcome. A date is still needed, and it can be months away. If the date arrives and you can't choose, that tells you something. It may mean you don't want any of the options on the table, and the real decision is a different one.

When you chose and it went badly. This will happen sometimes, and how you read it matters. There are two separate questions to ask. One is whether it was a poor decision, given what you knew. The other is whether it was a reasonable decision that turned out badly, as some will. A course that closes after a year through no fault of yours was bad luck. Reading it as "I should never have chosen" is how the loop wins the next round. Take whatever lesson there is, which is usually a must you hadn't known you had, and add it to the next list. A few decisions that went wrong don't prove the old way was safer. The old way had costs as well, and they were easier to overlook.

When you slip back. You'll find yourself three laps into something before you notice, with eleven tabs open about a kettle. That's the habit, and it's had years of practice. Don't treat it as a failure or as proof that the method doesn't work for you. Close the tabs, write the musts, set the date for tomorrow. Each time you do that, the next time gets easier.

When the feeling is bigger than the decision. If you can't choose anything at the moment, including what to eat or what to wear, and you also feel flat, tired and hopeless, go back to the caution at the start of this book and see your GP. The same applies if the going round feels less like weighing and more like a checking you can't stop, with a dread that something terrible will follow a wrong choice. Anxiety and obsessive problems can look like indecision, and they respond to treatment. In England you can refer yourself to NHS talking therapies without seeing a GP first.

When someone is pushing you. A salesperson who says the offer ends today is using a date against you. A date helps when you've set it yourself, in advance, to fit the size of the decision. If someone else imposes one to stop you thinking, that's a good reason to walk away. Deciding quickly and being rushed are different things.