Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work

by Chip Heath

Ooching is best for situations where we genuinely need more information. It’s not intended to enable emotional tiptoeing, in which we ease timidly into decisions that we know are right but might cause us a little pain. Consider two men, Marshall and Jason, who both quit college after two years and now, in their mid-twenties, find that they’re getting nowhere in their careers. Marshall knows for sure that he needs a degree to advance in his career, but he puts it off. He doesn’t like school very much, so it’s always easy to find a reason to delay. For him, ooching—by, say, taking one class per semester—would be a cop-out, a way of stalling. It would also be likely to end poorly. At that pace of course work, he’d need many years to complete his degree, and with each passing year, it would be easier and easier to quit altogether. Jason, meanwhile, has always been fascinated by marine biology, but he is wise enough to know that he doesn’t fully understand what it entails. He should ooch. He should shadow a marine biologist for a few hours a week—does the work appeal to him?—and also audit a class or two at a local university to see if he can handle the course work. If, after he ooches, he becomes convinced that marine biology is a good fit, then he should stop ooching and leap headfirst! Ooching, in short, should be used as a way to speed up the collection of trustworthy information, not as a way to slow down a decision that deserves our full commitment.