Decision making skills are often applied to solve problems. There are a number of alternatives or courses of action from which the best or optimum alternative is chosen in making the best use of decision making skills. Decision making skills to a great extent also form the key part of time management skills.

Often, decision making is not an easy task as decision making also implies conflict resolution. The difficult task in decision making skills is to zero-in-on one solution, where the positive outcome outweighs possible losses. Suspending or avoiding decision is often the easier thing to do. However, success demands making your decisions and accepting their consequences, so as to stay in control of your time and life.

Success in decision making skills requires knowing and practicing superior decision making techniques. The decision making technique can be simplified in a few steps as follows:

• Look for the reason. Specify the problem and identify the reason, why it must be solved.

• Look for all available information relating to the problem and list them.

• Define the judgment criteria. What principles or standards should be met for one of the alternative solutions to emerge as the best solution?

• List as many possible choices as possible through discussions and brainstorming sessions. The more ideas you generate, the closer you move to the optimal solution.

• Examine each choice on the yardstick of standards and judgment criteria that you have defined. Determine the pros and cons of each alternative.

• Identify the best alternative. This is relatively an easy step, once you have sequentially followed the above steps.

• Initiate the plan of action. The decision you have just taken must be transformed into action. In absence of the execution of plan, the very reason for making decision will be nullified.

• Finally the consequences of your decision and the steps leading to it must be examined and evaluated so as to learn the valuable lessons. This hones up your decision making skills further.

It must be finally remarked that in real life situations, we are often expected to take quick decisions. We don't have enough time to think over the steps involved. In such situations, the best decision making skill involves the strategy of keeping an eye on your goals and trust your intuition to direct you to the right choice.