Prompt Decision

Hill described the habit of deciding promptly and holding the decision firmly as a mark of the people he admired, and blamed procrastination for many failures. He also warned against letting other people's opinions decide for you. The observation that delay itself has a cost is fair. Postponing a decision about a debt or a job offer is still a decision, often a worse one. But Hill's rule treats every choice the same way, and decision research does not. A useful distinction, popularised in business by Jeff Bezos, is between reversible decisions, which should be made fast, and decisions that are hard to undo, which deserve evidence, a second opinion and time. Changing your mind slowly is also only a virtue when the facts have not changed. When they do, holding on becomes stubbornness or the sunk-cost trap. Writing down the reason for each large decision also helps later, because you can see whether the decision was poor or only the outcome was unlucky.