Sleeping on it best for complex decisions

[Celebration]

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/dn8732.html

Complex decisions are best left to your unconscious mind to work out, according to a new study, and over-thinking a problem could lead to expensive mistakes.

The research suggests the conscious mind should be trusted only with simple decisions, such as selecting a brand of oven glove. Sleeping on a big decision, such as buying a car or house, is more likely to produce a result people remain happy with than consciously weighing up the pros and cons of the problem, the researchers say.

Thinking hard about a complex decision that rests on multiple factors appears to bamboozle the conscious mind so that people only consider a subset of information, which they weight inappropriately, resulting in an unsatisfactory choice. In contrast, the unconscious mind appears able to ponder over all the information and produce a decision that most people remain satisfied with...........snip...........

“At some point in our evolution, we started to make decisions consciously, and we’re not very good at it. We should learn to let our unconscious handle the complicated things,” Dijksterhuis says.

[reality based]

1. Ah, so that's why Cheney waited so long.

Too bad he couldn't have slept before he shot old Harry.

[Straight Shooter]

3. You beat me to it.

Also too bad this report came out after the "accident," or he would have had another excuse to throw at the press.

[acmejack]

2. Raygun should have been superb in that case.

I wonder why he didn't do a lot better. He mst have listened to Baker, Bennett and Meese (Oh No!)

[supernova]

4. I've always done this

It's nice to know that science backs me up.

I just know that when I have a hard decision to make, I get to a stopping place about it and just say "aww, fuck it." and go to bed. The next day when I wake up, I can see my path more clearly. And if I don't think of an answer, I usualy think of a different way to think about it to find an answer.