Research and ‘decision debt’
I was listening to Brooke Castillo’s The Life Coach School podcast (yes, I am kind of into self-coaching and thought work at the moment) episode #264, Decision Debt. Although the episode is about (not) making life decisions in general, I couldn’t help but think about how central decision-making is also to doing research and dealing with activities related to research.
Castillo points out that for as long as we don’t make a decision on something that we should, it keeps draining our energy, and everything we are unsure about piles up into a debt of unmade decisions. This results in us weighing options over and over again in our heads and in an emotion of obligation that is similar to financial debt. How to recognize a decision that should be made? When we think something like “I don’t know”, “I’m not sure”, “maybe, maybe not”, “I’ll see what happens”, “I’m confused” – these are telltale signs that whatever makes us think these thoughts is something that demands a decision to be made.
What does decision-making give us? It moves us forward whether we decide TO do something or NOT TO do something; either type of decision is a step forward. Every decision also frees up energy and makes us conscious about our choices. It allows our brain to focus its energy on the following small decision that help us towards the desired result. (So for example, you might make the big decision of going to grad school, and after that smaller decisions on what kind of research you will do, which will also be split into smaller decisions about research methods and data, and so on.)
According to Castillo, we often postpone and hesitate to make decisions because we want to make “the right decision”. However, she also points out that indecision leaves us just as uncomfortable as making a decision that comes with the risk of failure. So, might as well go ahead and stop wondering which way to go!
Decision-making takes place constantly in research. As a fresh postdoc researcher, one of my struggles has been deciding which exact research topic to focus on next – there are so many options even after I narrow it down to ‘online gameplay videos’. But besides that, there are, for example, conferences, chapter proposals, and all kinds of interesting events that tempt us to participate, but it’s not possible to give every option the same kind of priority. A conveniently located conference might have a theme that requires you to think slightly outside your current research project and do extra work that you don’t really have the time or resources for. But the longer you keep wondering if it’s worth the effort instead of committing to either submitting your abstract or waiting for a different opportunity, you are wasting important energy. Us researchers desperately need that brainpower.
Another important aspect highlighted by Castillo was how important it is to ‘re-decide’, to remake decisions down the line. A clear example of this might be the PhD process. Can you re-decide to complete the PhD two years into the project? If you could be happy either way, would you choose to keep working on the PhD or choose to stop? But more senior researchers face such decisions as well, especially if some research articles seem to drag on year after year – because of lack of time, and eventually interest. After some time, the topic might not seem as exciting as it did before, and it can be challenging to finish. Still, the articles keep haunting somewhere in the back of one’s mind. This seems like an excellent time to re-decide and either decide to finish the articles by a certain deadline, or decide that this is never going to happen, so might as well give them a proper – but quick – burial.
All in all, it seems like a healthy idea to regularly check which decisions, big or small, are ones that need to be made. Castillo suggests giving each decision a deadline, so that they won’t be postponed the way they have been until the present moment. The goal is to decide to want what is, or decide to change. To many young researchers, a big decision to make is whether to continue doing academic research at all, or try to find employment elsewhere because of the scarcity of research funding and stable research positions (or tenure track positions). This is a difficult and life-changing decision to make and, as someone who spent seven months of this year unemployed after completing my PhD, it can be difficult to set a deadline for how long it makes sense to keep applying for research funding and elusive research/teaching positions. This is especially the case when it takes anywhere from four to nine months to hear whether a funding application has been successful or not.
What are some of the decisions that you need to make?
