Advice worth every penny you paid for it

Just thought I'd share something I wrote to my daughter in college. She seemed unhappy over not being able to put enough time in on both her English paper and her Bio midterm to do well on both, so here's what I told her:

One of the lifelong skills one acquires during their college years is how to judge time trade-offs. People never have enough time and/or energy to do everything they want, nor to do the best possible job on everything they absolutely need to do. There are no right or wrong answers. Allocate the time the way that makes the most sense to you at the moment and NEVER look back or beat yourself up about making the choice you did. You do the best you can with the time and energy you have. Once the crunch is over, only then assess what you did and what you could have done differently.

Honestly, I have no idea if I'd be able to follow that advice myself or even if it's right. It was worth saying something though, and this didn't seem like it could hurt. It reminds me of something I like to repeat here every so often. It's a decision-making tool that I use regularly when faced with a choice that's not particularly clear cut.

It's a simple principle, really. If you can't figure out what the right thing to do is, assume you're going to screw it up and look at the anticipated consequences. If you're going to be wrong, which mistake would you rather make? This is a logical and even somewhat calming way to approach things. Learned it in business school in a problem-solving class.