Before you start

This is a short book and you can read it in two or three sittings. It's about one habit. You have a decision to make, and you've been making it for a long time. You go over the options, you nearly settle, a doubt arrives, and you start again. It might be a sofa or a job, a course or a house move. You're capable and careful, and other people bring their decisions to you. With your own, you go round.

I'm going to argue three things. The first is that going round makes sense from the inside. You're trying to avoid a mistake, and waiting feels like the careful thing to do. The second is that waiting is a choice too, with results of its own, and that most of the going round produces nothing new. The sureness you're waiting for mostly arrives after a choice and seldom before it. The third is practical. You write down what the choice has to do, you set a date, you pick the first option that does it, and you stop looking. Chapters 14 to 17 cover how.

This book won't tell you which option to pick. I don't know your situation, and the argument doesn't depend on it. The book is about the going round, which is much the same whatever the decision is.

Three cautions.

Finding it hard to make decisions can be a symptom of something else. The NHS lists "finding it difficult to make decisions" among the psychological symptoms of depression, next to continuous low mood, no motivation and not getting any enjoyment out of life. If that list sounds like your last few weeks, the decision isn't your main problem, and a GP is the place to start. If you have thoughts of harming yourself, ask for an urgent GP appointment or call 111 today.

Some decisions need an expert, and the expert's view counts as real information. If the choice is medical, legal or financial, take advice from someone qualified. This book covers what happens after you have that advice and still can't choose.

And if the decision you're circling is whether to leave someone who frightens or controls you, this book is the wrong tool. The freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline is open day and night on 0808 2000 247, and the people there can talk through your options and your safety with you.

The notes at the back give my sources and their limits. Where I'm giving my own reasoning and not a finding, I'll say so.