Tag Archives: decision making

Recumbent Trike Decision Making Process

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I have a few posts on this blog about making decisions. I also use my Rule of Three quite often when making decisions.  I know it is always good to modify my Rule of Three when my, Rule of Three, does not work correctly for that situation. Sometimes a decision is important and available information needed for making a correct decision fits all decision choices almost equally – that is a problem. When this happens one or more of the three rules need modifying.

In this instance my initial Rule of Three failed me in trying to choose a Recumbent Trike. I was wavering between four models and two companies. I thought the decision would be easy as I decided what my top three needs were in a Recumbent Trike. They were:

1. Quality Build – If I am spending what is to me a large amount of money, I want to most quality product my allotted dollars can buy. This decision was made more complex by the pricing structure, and ignorance of bicycle components. Both companies and all models seemed to have almost equal yet different makers and level of the installed components.

2. Crowd favorite – As I have little Experience with Recumbent Trikes, it was important to stick to a manufacturer and model which other have bought and are or were happy with before they decided they needed something more.

3. General comfort and high speed safety – I love to go fast. I also want to be comfortable. Unfortunately, comfort and speed do not meld together well in a human powered vehicle.

In situations such as these where there is no clear choice when the most important factors are used, a new model needs to be created to do a better job of showing differences between what appear to be almost identical choices. I have heard this called, “Keep investigating until one of your choices reaches out and grabs you”.

That is a good explanation, and it works. Make a snap decision, and any of my four choices may indeed have been good. I may have been happy with any one of the four choices I narrowed my search down to. And maybe not too.

The problem is it is an important decision. I need to be happy with the result long term and be comfortable knowing I made the right decision. Because there were four Recumbent Trikes in my list, and they all seemed equal, I had to find areas where one choice clearly outweighed my other three choices .

My choice needed to be solid enough so I do not suffer that little nagging voice in the background telling me, maybe I would ‘really’ be happier with one of the other Recumbent Trikes other than the one I chose because I could not choose correctly.

When that little voice starts, it is hard to quiet it. It is a subtle little thought that appears whenever something is not quite perfect with a choice I made. It whispers, “…maybe the other choice would have been better?” Of course there is no way of knowing either way, and the doubt lingers and grows over time.

What I did first was ignore what was written by people who were obviously in love with their Recumbent Trikes, and read comments from people who had quibbles with their purchase. What did these people mostly agree on that was good for each Recumbent Trike though they chose a different brand or model?

Secondly, I placed a formal weight on each of my choices. I started with 100 point pie and split it into three, giving each slice thirty-three points. That did not help much, but it led to a different set of criteria. I needed to rethink and redetermine how much each of my choices really mattered when added together to equal one-hundred.

High speed, though fun, is not really crucial to my enjoyment of peddling around as it is once in while event. What the crowds prefer did not help either because everyone has different needs and wants. Neither did comfort, because for every complaint in the comfort department there is someone else who was thrilled, or there is a fix in place.

My final list boiled down to with about thirty points for each item was:

  • Quality of Manufacture and Components.
  • Provable value for each dollar spent.
  • Technical experience of posters on various Trike forums.

Quality was number one. The car commercial is correct, Quality is Job One. Quality was given the biggest slice of my 100 point pie.  Value for each dollar spent changed my thinking on how much I should spend. That was the second biggest piece of my one-hundred pie. Third was expertise and experience of Trike riding posters in the forums. People who had years of cycling experience and were now riding a Recumbent Trike, enjoying it, and having knowledge and experience to back up their opinions.

After re-slicing my 100 point pie, everything became simple. I was still using The Rule of Three, but now they were three criteria that showed the strong points and flaws in each of my previously ‘about the same’ four picks. Especially when I had the opinions of cycling experts available to weigh my guesses against.

Basing my decisions of these three weighted wants, it was a simple matter to make the most correct choice. Revising and weighing my wants against each of the four Trike models I narrowed my view. The best choice stood out easily over the other three. I went to sleep feeling I had arrived at a good decision, and woke the next morning, knowing I arrived at the best decision for me.

This was good learning! The learning in this post, is if you follow a sound decision making process, and all decisions appear to be equal, take a few moments and redefine the criteria you are using to arrive at a decision. When you are objective and use the correct criteria instead of what you think is the correct criteria, the right choice is a no-brainer. It will, “reach out and grab you!”

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Bad Decisions Can Hurt

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I was in a conversation today when an interesting remark was made. The remark is applicable to many conversations and circumstances. Once heard I thought the remark would be applicable as a life compass to help everyone make better decisions. Decisions we find ourselves making are not always the best when we look at them after the fact. I will use driving as a simple example here too with myself as the main character.

The morning starts out bad. The power went out, the alarm clock died, I wake up late because of of the clock and the power, and because I went to bed later than I should have the night before. I start my car, and think if I drive fast to work I will make it faster than if I take my time and follow the speed limits. The time saved is really only a minute or two, and the speed limits are fast enough. That is reasonable thinking although I am not thinking reasonably at the moment.

I am almost to wherever I am going, and suddenly there is a police car behind me with red lights flashing. The Policeman has done his duty, no slacking off for him, and I am looking at a hefty fine. Checking my watch I see I have lost ten minutes when I only was two minutes ahead anyway. Now there is the matter of my insurance company finding out, and depending on what I do for a living, the company I work for.

Getting to work in thirty-two minutes late instead of thirty-six minutes late is not a life changing event. A speeding ticket in in and of itself is not a major life changing situation. Hitting another car, and injuring the other driver, or running over someone crossing the street because I was racing along, would be a life changing event I would live with the rest of my life.

The issue of abortion for example; in the thinking of some people is getting the abortion is not the whole issue. What is the whole issue, is the behavior that led up to getting pregnant in the first place. Why would anyone get pregnant with someone they do not wish to have a baby with? Why was someone having unprotected sex if they did not wish to be pregnant in the first place?

Pregnancy and abortion are trigger words for high profile articles, and are used here to point out a thinking flaw most of us tend to share at one time or another in our lives. We find ourselves taking an action even though we dread one of the possible outcomes. We somehow prevent ourselves, or downplay that outcome while we are making the decision.

If you have not guessed by now the remark, and I bet you thought I forgot about it and went off on a tangent, was a word picture about getting pregnant when not planning to, by someone you do not want a baby with. The actual wording is of little importance, but the idea behind it should be on the top of everyones decision making list.

As I thought about what was said, I saw another ‘Rule of Three’ in the making.

What are the worst possible outcomes within reason?

Is the best outcome worth the risk of the worst outcome(s) actually happening?

How seriously will the outcomes you do not want, if they happen change your life?

When looked at through those three lenses, what seems like a good idea at the moment is not worth the risk of what could happen if something goes wrong. If something goes wrong, looking at yourself in the mirror every day, knowing a poor choice you made, because you can not make it right, is the real painful result. Who wants to wake every day knowing it easily could have been a different choice if only?

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Be who you are, not who you were

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I am sure you have heard, or read the (possibly mildly offensive to some) joke about the young bull and the old bull? In a cleaned up version, two bulls on top of a hill see a group of cows in the valley below. One, a young bull, being young, wants to rush in and mate with one of the cows. The old bull wants to walk down slowly, and mate with a number of the cows.

This joke is probably thousands of years old. There was a form of it in the movie, ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’, in the parking lot scene. It is also a premise in many other books and movies. At the end of all of these, the logic is immediately apparent: Why waste energy on small stuff when there are more important matters coming up? When you are older you will have more to contribute. While youth is great it is not the end all of existence, there is much more to life.

We should be who we are. When I was younger I enjoyed knowing there was someone around who was older and had more life experience than myself. I could go to and use them as a sounding board to help me through a hard decision, and present choices I had not thought of. I have never wanted to live in a world like that of Time machine, Logan’s Run, Brave New World, or any of the other books and movies where young is all there is, and life is controlled. Where and once you reach a certain age, you disappear. That’s not living, thats a lie in action.

It is a disservice to younger people to be much older, and try to be one of them. A much better tact is let someone younger than yourself be younger, and you be yourself at your correct age. There is much more to be gained from the relationship, and more satisfaction for both parties.

Take advantage of your life knowledge and life experience, to help young adults make the world a better place rather than helping them repeat the same mistakes that have already been made. If you are a young adult, take advantage of your enthusiasm, and energy to make the world a better place, but stop once in a while and ask directions.

No one would seriously argue the generally hasty decision making processes of some young adults. They do things on an instant. They are driving to a friends house, and they show up late, but with a new car. They push too many limits, and sometimes they pay a tragic price, either in themselves or the harm they have done to someone else. Thankfully, our society is set up in such a way, the damage they can do is limited.

There is a reason why people must meet a certain age requirement, either by law, or by general consensus. The reason for an minimum age, is peoples life experience, and decision making abilities have to be at a certain level before they can be effective in certain life roles.

I think it is a disservice to yourself, and young people, to be much older pretending to be young. A much better tact is let someone younger than yourself be younger, and you be you. There is much more to be gained from life, and more satisfaction for everyone. Take advantage of your life knowledge and life experience to help young adults make the world a better place rather than helping them repeat the same mistakes we did.

If you are a young adult, take advantage of your enthusiasm, and energy to make the world a better place. There is a lot to be said for youth, and there is a lot to be said for the knowledge and wisdom of age. Think about how much can be said when the two combine forces! Don’t be afraid to be the age you are. If you do not be your age, the only person you are fooling is yourself. You are also cheating yourself of some very good years in your life, and you probably do not like the person in the mirror to much either.

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