Positive-Negative-Interesting Charts for Tough Decisions

Making decisions is hard. I often find myself perseverating in circles around the same landmarks of my brain while trying to come to a conclusion about some minor or major choice I’m facing. I do this a lot on the Ringbahn to and from work. Staring intently and sometimes seemingly angrily out the window, or with my eyes squinted at a spot above somebody’s head while the hardware of my mind furiously computes the question of ‘what should I do with my two weeks off?’ probably also keeps the weirdos from coming any closer.

Paralysis by analysis doesn’t need to continually render one catatonic in the decision making process. For your next decision of any size or import, try building a PNI (Positive-Negative-Interesting) Chart. On the surface it just looks like your standard grade 5 Pro-Con list. But a PNI chart is more subtle and interesting.

PNI charts are for people who need to back up their decisions, big and small, with good reasons. They are for people who need to articulate their whys, even if only to themselves. They are for people for whom when making decisions need to feel like they are making the best possible one, whether this is related to the actual decision, or the higher decision making process. Sometimes coming to a decision is not actually about the value of a pair of shoes you are considering buying, but about allowing yourself to be occasionally impulsive.

The PNI decision-making process is one of systematic self-knowledge, which also allows for the space of imagination and exploration and wondering. A pro-con list requires you to squeeze everything you think about a situation into a false binary. Many of the more ambiguous and fluid aspects of a decision get truncated into either good or bad, when they may be neither. In a PNI chart, everything that doesn’t fit strongly into either pro or con gets its own column of ‘Interesting’. 

Anything can go in the Interesting column. It could be speculation about possible outcomes. It could be questions that you have yet to consider. It could be things you worry about when making this decision. It could be things that are inspiring or challenging during this process. It can be meta, and more about how you want to make the decision than what is actually being decided. It could even redefine the question you think you are asking.

A PNI chart is followed by a Conclusion For Now sentence. This can be as short or as long as you need it to be. 

Here is a PNI chart I made around January 2016. The issue was over rent negotiation. My roommates were charging me for my little room more than what they were paying combined for their huge room with walk in closet and balcony. We discussed for many days and there was an end point where I had to decide if I would accept their final offer or not. Their final offer was still much higher than I believed it should be.

PNI Chart – Rent Negotiations

If I accept the offer

Positive

Negative

Interesting

Wouldn’t have to move again

Don’t need to deal with new roommates

Don’t have deal with moving expenses

I may feel not good about this in the long term

I will feel like an ultimatum has been leveraged

It will alter the mood of the living arrangement

But finding new roommates could be interesting and full of unexpected good surprises.

We may be able to renegotiate the rent split once the 3^rd roommate finds work

Could keep contract on a month by month basis

The mood of the living arrangement has already been changed anyway by this discussion

If I do not accept the offer

Positive

Negative

Interesting

I make a stand for what I believe I deserve

Taking a stand may be the thing that shows them that I am really serious about doing what I believe is right for me, and may convince them to rethink their offer

Have to move my stuff to a friend’s place and start from square one (a big pain in Berlin)

Would have to re-register at new place (another big pain)

No guarantee I will find a cheaper rent

No guarantee that I won’t find myself in the same situation with others, getting gouged for rent because the people who are already there set the price they want.

What does it feel like to make a decision based on what I believe is right for me, even though it may put me temporarily in a much more difficult situation?

What are my principles worth? How much inconvenience am I willing to suffer to stand up for what I think I deserve?

Conclusion for now: Since I still pay slightly below market rate for rent, even though it could be much less, I would most likely not find another place with equal housing conditions cheaper or at the same price as what I pay now. The hassle and cost of moving coupled with the uncertainty of what kind of place or roommates I might find elsewhere make the inconvenience of moving greater than the indignancy of knowing that I am being used as rent fodder. The situation is annoying but not intolerable. I can live with it for now and continue to look for other places when the time is suitable.

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You will notice as you lay out your thoughts in the chart, that some things become quite obvious. Like if one of the columns vastly overwhelms the other. Or if the things that you initially thought were Negative may actually fall into the Interesting category. Or if all the little things piled up in the Positive category actually don’t outweigh the one or two really strong points in the Negative category.

Having a place to organize your thoughts helps the process vastly, particularly if it is a multi-step decision with complex factors. One could even make a PNI chart for each step of a decision. Below is one such tiered example. 

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I have two weeks off between the end of my current job and the beginning of my new one. Initially I had been quite convinced that I wanted to do my third 10 day Vipassana meditation course and had applied all over Europe to find a spot, which I eventually got. Then there was doubt as to whether this would be the best use of my time. PNI’ing followed.

PNI: Going to Vipassana

Positive

Negative

Interesting

Will be my only chance for a 10 day for at least a year

Would be helpful for budgeting while I'm not working as the course will essentially be free and I would just pay the travel there

Would be a good jump start back into meditation.

Will not have this time to work on writing and other personal projects

Feels a bit like I’m going because of time constraint, not necessarily because I deeply want to right now.

Could do 3 day course instead

If I stay I can work on publishing articles, starting drawing, establishing a good creative routine, participate in Berlin events, see friends, do physical things, enjoy the heat of summer (hopefully), get back into language stuff in preparation for new job. 

I am able to supplement income with my drop in part time job if I need to. 

Could go to visit my German family on the sheep farm instead. 

Conclusion for now: The two weeks are very valuable in establishing creative routine and being able to publish articles. Doing a 3 day course another time would serve me better than a 10 day course now.

PNI: Going to the Farm

Positive

Negative

Interesting

Would get to see my German family and be with the animals and the outside.

Would be good to revisit and consider how much has happened since I was there a year ago.

Would speak a lot of German and get more ready for new job at language school.

Would be good physical work.

Would be helpful for budgeting while I'm not working.

Not much sheep work, but outside work.

May get trapped making hay. 

It may make me not feel like going again soon (ie, next lambing season), if I go this time in August.

Don’t know who the other volunteers would be and how we would get along.

May be better to visit during the next lambing season.

Could be good inspiration for writing again, or to make a website for the farm. 

I could still write articles about the farm without being there, and use my old photos for them. Writing for the farm blog could be helpful in unplugging my writer’s block.

Conclusion for now: I should leave myself lots of time in Berlin to do all the things I want to do. If I really feel like going to the farm for a week, I can do so on relatively short notice. So I can wait until I’m in my two week break and then decide based on the circumstances then.

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For small, inconsequential decisions I can now do a PNI chart in my head, based more on how I feel about the interesting column. Do I go to this party that my flake friend told me to come to? Do I stay home tonight and instead write about PNI charts? 

I think that intuition is actually arriving quickly at decisions through what is at its core a rational process. Essentially your brain becomes so quick at laying out the positives, negatives, and interesting parts of a situation, that you don’t realize it is doing it and simply arrive at a conclusion. If you trace this conclusion backwards, you can find the rational and emotional reasons behind it. As with many things that become second nature, they first start as new habits and through practice become unecessary to think intensively about.

For bigger decisions, or for when you’re tired and can’t make sense of yourself anymore, lay down a quick PNI chart, followed by a ‘Conclusion for now’ sentence. A temporary conclusion is often all we need to feel more at ease with hard decisions that seem to have no clearly favorable path. We just need to know what the decision will be for now, knowing that with shifting factors in the PNI, that this can change later.

Choices, no matter how small, are a series of portals that lead to the reality that you occupy now. May as well make them in a sane way so that they lead towards the reality that you want.

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Here's to your next decision. Enjoy! 

Decision to be made:

Positive

Negative

Interesting

Conclusion for Now:

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For more on Hard Choices, see Ruth Chang's TED Talk.