[RK]

My advisor in grad school once gave the following advice algorithm for making a decision:

1. Flip a coin.

2. If the result of the coin flip makes you hesitate at all, you know that was the choice you didn't really like anyway. Go with the other choice.

[baddox]

The problem is that in any decision difficult enough to make you resort to a coin flip, most likely either coin flip result will make you hesitate.

[duncanawoods]

I agree but I wouldn't take it too literally. The coin flip isn't binding but it can be fascinatingly revealing about your own opinions.

I see it as a way to actualise the consequences of the choice and cut through layers of intellectual abstraction. In some respects its a tool to let you engage emotional thinking to help make better decisions. On the flip, it can suddenly trigger a feeling of loss and regret. Our fundamental beliefs can be strangely out of reach when we think too hard.

A similar tool is just explaining your decision to another. I can get a flush of emotion e.g. embarrassment or shame, that you don't get when you just cogitate alone. Pretty useful for tough design decisions e.g. midway through explaining a particularly clever idea I find myself apologising... its time to rethink things!

[TeMPOraL]

Also if both decisions make you hesitate, it suggests that costs/benefits of both of them cancel each other out, so you may as well stop hesitating and go with what the coin tells you.

[arcatek]

Actually, the real point of flipping a coin is that during the brief lapse of time during which the piece is in the air, you will know what's the choice you prefer. The result doesn't matter.

[allworknoplay]

This is what I've always done! I agree with what another poster said about how revealing it can be -- you suddenly see yourself in the position where the decision had actually gone a certain way and you have to deal with the consequences. People always look at me funny when I explain it to them, though.

[hawkice]

I have always used the variant where, if I do not make up my mind before the coin lands, I do what the coin says.