Making Decisions

What do you do when you can't make up your mind? Today my daughter had a soccer game in the morning and her school had an open house where she was supposed to be a tour guide in the early afternoon. We could get there, but late. She had in her possession two letters from the person running the program. One said that it was essential to be on time and the other said that if you could come after your game it would be great because we need you. She wasn't sure which to do, so I had her use my favorite decision-making tool- assume you're going to screw up and decide which mistake you'd rather make. Would you rather show up and have them not need you or not show up and have them need you? It made it an easy decision to decide she should go.

I actually learned this in business school, though there are plenty of people (those born with what they call "common sense") who figure it out for themselves. Which mistake would you regret less?

For what it's worth, I always found this a powerful argument against the death penalty.