Blended Confessionals Volume 4: Decision Making

Today’s topic is about how we deal with decision making, and figure out the (the millions of) decisions that come along with long-term travel.

This conundrum is an interesting one and one that I did not anticipate, or at least anticipate well-enough before going on a long-term trip. I am not someone that really has trouble making decisions. In fact, I probably swing a little bit too far the other way – I love being decisive and making decisions so much that at times I can be too quick to go one way or the other. I think the root of this comes from the fact that I get a lot of pleasure (actually almost like a “high”) from completing tasks and to-do items. Being fast at decision making is a way for me to quickly check off a lot of items on a to-do list, and boy, doesn’t that just feel so so good?

Well, recently I’ve embarked on two new big adventures – getting married and long-term travel. And not only that, I’m doing them both together, as a newlywed. As most people know, some of the biggest pieces to a successful marriage are the ability to compromise, to work together and to make decisions together. And so we thought, why not put this to the ultimate test – let’s spend 22 hours a day together, for 8 months straight after getting married. I mean, it’s the ultimate test of compromise and decision making as a couple – what could go wrong?

Well, regardless of all the buildup above, so far it’s mostly gone right. I’m very lucky that Damian is not only so easy going, but that he loves me and spoils me so much that he almost always wants me to get/do what I want. But, we do get into situations where the decisions we each want to make aren’t aligned. A really easy (and nerdy) way to visualize it is below (and yes, the different sizes for the circles is intentional!):

Decisions that only Jyoti cares about

Admittedly, there are more of these than there are decisions that Damian cares about. I am more picky when it comes to what type of lodging we stay in. I have a more sensitive stomach and am a more limited eater. I need time to recover after long travel days, and especially after I get motion sick. And, as we’ve established, I’m just a bit more opinionated in general. As you can see in the chart above, my circle is bigger than Damian’s, and as much as I’d like to be the easy-peasy-going kind of girl, it’s just not who I am.

So what do we do when we travel? In general this really isn’t an issue for us. Damian is happy to go along with what I want, especially when the outcome doesn’t matter to him. And, bless his heart, he’s really good at anticipating the decisions I will care about and creating situations where only “good” solutions are available.

For example, I really can’t handle staying in lodging with mosquitos. My body and my psyche just do not end up in a good place. We recently showed up to a town in Brasil and the place we had booked was infested. If Damian was alone he would have stayed there no problem, but he knew it wasn’t going to work for me. So, he created a set of options (how geeky does that sound?) that would help me make a decision; which was especially appreciated when I was close to panic mode.

He sprayed the room we had gotten in case I wanted to still stay there, he talked to management about if any other rooms would be better and he researched driving to our next stop and staying in a place with less “outdoors access”. That’s just one example of how awesome he is at reducing the burden of decision making for me, even if it’s something he doesn’t really care about.

Decisions only Damian cares about

These situations are few and far between. Usually if it’s something big, we both care about it, and if it’s medium- or small-sized, Damian is “whatever, it’s all good” about it. However, there are things he cares about more than me – making sure he takes his vitamins every day is one that comes to mind. But honestly there are so few of these that, to be to scale, I probably should have made his circle smaller above (but it would have been so small that you’d hardly be able to see it!).

So what do we do when we travel? Because Damian is so easygoing, when something matters to him I try really, really hard to just do whatever he wants. If we are on a road trip and he is driving (because only he can in most of our rental cars, damn stick shifts), and he really wants to listen to an NPR podcast, then we do. Again, really a non-issue in our relationship and again something I am having a hard time coming up with examples for!

Decisions that we both care about

As any couple knows, this is the big kahuna of things to work out – what decision making process do you use when both people in a couple care about a decision. The mature, evolved couple of course talks it through rationally and calmly, and creates a new solution that addresses both partners’ needs. Unfortunately, no real relationship can do that all the time, and so there are moments we encounter where we have disparate wants and have to figure that out.

So what do we do when we travel? Honestly, we are still working on this one. The best thing we have learned to do is try to figure out the root cause of why we each want what we want, communicate that to each other and then try to find a mutual solution that addresses both root causes. In reality though, what typically happens first, is that we will both get a little annoyed and need to pause and reset the conversation to figure out what is really happening.

We had a recent example of this one the road. We were on a 5-hour drive and it had gotten dark. There were a lot of potholes and it had rained, making them difficult to see. We had probably about 90 minutes to go and Damian wanted to stop on the side of the road and get out to pee. Simple thing, but I really did not want to stop and wanted to power through until we got to our final destination.

After a little (annoyed-ness and) conversation we realized the root cause of each of our POVs. Damian’s legs were sore and he was getting tired from all the driving, so he wanted to stretch and re-energize, so he could be the safest driver he could. I was nervous in a country where I didn’t speak the language and in an area where I didn’t know anything about safety. So we came up with a compromise to stop on the side of the road, but Damian would leave me with the keys locked in the car and he would stay close by – within eyeshot and earshot – while he stretched, etc. That way he could get the re-invigorating he needed and I could feel safe.

I will say, I was pretty damn proud of us for navigating (pun intended) decision making in that moment pretty smoothly. Not 100% of them go like that, but we are getting closer and closer to that goal as the trip goes on!

But wait, there’s more …

However, and this is the sneaky part. If it was just these three sets of decisions, things would be easier. But the problem with decision making on the road is that there are just so. many. decisions. to. be. made. To be completely accurate and comprehensive (#MECEforlife) there actually is another set of decisions that needs to be included in the above graph. In my head it looks something like this:

One of the biggest surprises for me has been just how many decisions we have to make every single day when we travel, and how little we both care about most of them. The above chart shows that the circles that make up the decisions we care about are probably only about 10-20% of all the decisions we have to make in a day (represented by the rectangle).

The reason for this is that we don’t really have a routine. In regular life you get up, go to work, either bring lunch or eat at a regular place around the office, come home, maybe decide what to eat for dinner, then read/watch tv/play games and go to bed. Maybe on the weekends you have a bit more decision making to do.

But here? We are literally deciding how to fill up our days, every single day (first world problem, I know). What time do we wake up? What activities do we want to plan? How much downtime should be have? Where do we eat breakfast? And then lunch? And then dinner? Do we want to go out for drinks? What about our next destination? When should we leave to go there? Where should we stay? Should we try out a few places? Or do we extend where we are? Etc. Etc. Etc.

And the thing is, most of these decisions we don’t really care about, because we would be happy either way. We know it would be fun to stay in the little beach town we are in now for two more days, but we also know it would be fun to go and see another beach town for those two days. We know we will enjoy the meal at the hotel restaurant, we also know we will enjoy going into town to eat. When everything seems like a good option (and I realize how extremely fortunate that sounds and is), then the decision making becomes a burden.

So what do we do when we travel? We have been working on this one too, and so far the best solution we have found is to just make a decision and go with it. Not sure if we want to eat at this little place on the corner here? We both don’t care? Ok, let’s just go eat there for sustenance and call it a day. Otherwise we could go in circles talking about and trying to rationalize decisions that we don’t care about. The other benefit that this technique has is that if deep down one of us does care, making a decision will help force that feeling out. In the same example, if we chose to eat at little place on the corner and then I started feeling antsy or annoyed that’s a signal that I do care about where we eat, and that I need to put a little more thought and effort into the decision. But overall the strategy is to just decide things and move forward full steam ahead.

I guess this all ends up being good decision making practice for the future, and when we get home things should be easy right? It’ll be like when MLB players take practice swings with weights on their bats and then when they go up to the plate without the weights, their swings are like “whoosh, smooth like butter”. So yeah, whoosh is what I’m hoping all this “practice” leads to when we get back!