Have you ever tried to decide between two things but were so confused because you liked something about this but then something about that AARRGHH!

Deciding is so damn difficult.

I once asked Seth Godin what he thought of someone who had many aspirations to pursue, are they focusing or wearing their self thin. He said that if you’re pursuing a whole bunch of things and achieving that’s great…

BUT

if you have a whole bunch of things you’re working on because you can’t make a decision then that’s a problem.

How can we see through the bullshit…

I came up with a little system I use to decide between two things called:

Value checkpoints

It works for almost anything from deciding where to go on vacation to as little as choosing a cell phone.

1. You make a list of the criteria you WANT. For example:

• Large screen
• Loud speakerphone
• Facebook Contacts
• Easy to navigate
• Etc.

2. You create columns for the items you’re deciding about:

• Apple iPhone 4
• Tmobile LG G2X

3. You give each item a grade for each category on a scale of 0-3.

0 being non-existent. 3 being the highest.

4. You then tally up the score.

The item with the highest points WINS because it is closest to the guidelines you’re looking for.

So I would look at my first criterion: Large Screen and give a score of 0,1, 2 or 3 for both items and so on for all of my criteria.

Here’s a quick and dirty example for trying to decide between two phones.

Again this can work for anything, not just phones, even deciding on something as large as the next step in your career.

It works so well because you’re using your own VALUES to decide. The winner will always be based on what you really wanted since you set the criteria.

Sometimes, the glitter of something we want feels like gold, but when we use our value checkpoints to decide we can see through the glitter and glamour and get to the true value and how meaningful something will really be to our lives.

Let me know how this works for you.

Drop me a comment below and share this on Facebook and Twitter if it helps you.