Making decisions can take up a lot of your time. You often have multiple factors to think about, and you want time to think over your options before you make a final choice. When you need or want to buy something, especially if it’s going to be expensive, you can spend days, weeks, or even months mulling over your options. While it’s good to avoid rushing into big purchases, it can also mean that certain parts of your life are on hold until you’ve made a decision and bought what you need. If you can reduce your decision-making time, you can be more productive and move on to other things more quickly.
Define Your Needs/Wants
To help yourself make purchasing decisions more quickly, start by defining what exactly it is you’re looking for. What do you need from the purchase and what do you want? This will help to prevent you from aimlessly browsing different products or services with no real idea of what you’re looking for. You might need to do a bit of research first to determine what you should be looking for and what options are out there. Try finding some basic guides that give you the rundown on your choices.
Be Strict with Your Budget
Defining your budget should also help you to make a quicker and better decision. When you know how much you want to spend, you can immediately rule out anything that’s too expensive. You might also want to remove any options that you think might be too cheap. You might allow yourself to go slightly over budget if you find something that fits all of your criteria. However, it’s a good idea to define in advance just how much more you would spend and under what conditions you’d need to go over budget.
Use the Right Resources
Having some good resources for research can really help you to make a faster decision. When you have reliable resources that you know will give you good advice, you can use them whenever you need them instead of spending hours trying to find useful information. If you’re going to buy a car, Edmunds can help you out. If you’re looking for the best tech products, TechCrunch can give you the advice that you need. If you’re trying to buy a reliable appliance for your home, Good Housekeeping could help you find what you’re looking for.
Create a Checklist
A checklist of questions to ask yourself before a purchase will enable you to check that you’re making the right decision. It can also encourage you to think faster, rather than spending a long time mulling over whether you want to do something. You might ask yourself whether it’s something you need or just something you want. You can consider whether you have to buy it new or if buying used wouldn’t make much difference. You could also ask whether you’ve found the best deal or whether there are better prices available.
When you’re making big purchase decisions, don’t let the process drag out. You can be faster and more productive by improving your process.
