Pros And Cons List, What Does It Take?

[Amyadams67]

I'm on the verge of making some lofty decisions in my current life and one of them had me in the act of making a pros and cons list. At the moment, my cons outweigh my pros by one. (5 pros, 6 cons) I know some people make their decision by whichever outweighs the other and also some people who just use a pros and cons list to lay out the end results of events that could happen and don't necessarily make their final decision by which one outweighs the other.

my question is, how do you make a decision after establishing a pros and cons list? do you go by whichever outweighs the other?

thanks in advance to everyone who answers..

[Amyadams67]

should have posted this in a different category...

[Amyadams67]

nobody..? anybody....?

[ummmm]

I don't make a pros or cons list.

[Amyadams67]

@um darn

[buildersmate]

The scientific way in which this is done would be to create a long list of factors on one side then the other.
You have done this.
The next step is to assign a weighing to each factor. Then .multiply each factor by its weighting and sum the totals on each side.
The way you have done it at present weights each factor equally, and hence your "answer" merely ends up being the relative number of factors you thought of on each side.

At the end of the day, the weighting s and the factors are subjective, but you have at least put some objectivity into the analysis.

As is proven every morning when the latest survey emerges to shock-horror on the BBC or the Daily Rag newspaper, researchers can prove anything to their own desired outcome if you set the parameters right.

[factor-fiction]

http://freakonomics.com/2013/01/31/would-you-let-a-coin-toss-decide-your-future-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast-3/
This may be of interest

[Old_Geezer]

I rarely perform SWOT analysis but were I to do so I think I'd want to add weighting values to whatever I came up with, and also would use the result as a guide not the final arbiter. It's also useful as justification for whatever decision I finally go with.

[janbee]

if in doubt just flip a coin. ! Good luck Amy in whatever you decide to do. xx

[Old_Geezer]

A coin can be useful even if just to note what your reaction to its result is.