I Built the Perfect Spreadsheet. It Still Didn’t Decide For Me.

Part 6 of Decisions You Can Live With

This essay ends a short series exploring how difficult decisions actually form.

Part 1: Clarity Usually Comes After You Move

Part 2: I Felt Confidence. I Wasn’t Aligned

Part 3: Unconventional Decision Signals I Trust More Than Confidence

Part 4: Your Best Decisions May Form Through a Dance

Part 5: How The Feedback I Didn’t Want to Hear Shaped What I Carry Forward

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It was 7pm on a Wednesday.

I was in my SUV, researching high schools while my twin boys practiced baseball with their team.

I went on a deep-dive, exploring Texas high school rankings, trying to figure out the best fit for our sons.

I had just created an extensive table that listed out classroom ratios, average test scores, and graduation rates.

You name the data point. I had it.

In a strange way, I was even proud of the analysis and rigor. I felt my years of experience as an engineer prepared me for this exact moment.

Only, there was one problem: It didn’t move me any closer to a decision.

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More Data, Same Place

At first, I thought the problem was the lack of data.

If I can just get one more data point, I’ll make a decision.

Even though the data points would get richer, and the table would get bigger, clarity stayed the same.

If anything, clarity got smaller.

It wasn’t just academics.

My wife and I thought through everything: cost, commute times, spending now versus saving for college, the potential for college credits now, sports offerings and the type of environment they would be in every day.

We were not only methodical, but also intentional.

And still…it didn’t make the decision any clearer.

Time went by. Days turned into weeks.

That’s when something shifted….

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Different Questions

The more my wife and I sat with this decision, the more we realized, this wasn’t just about schools. It was about their future. That’s what made if feel complicated.

We wanted to get it right. More than anything.

These were our firstborn.

So we started to wrestle with different questions:

Who might they become?

Where would they be happiest?

How would their character be shaped?

And, most importantly, what did they actually want?

The spreadsheet couldn’t answer the questions.

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The Shift

What we didn’t realize at the time is we were trying to solve an emotional decision with mostly logic.

Our analytical thinking helps us compare options,. It gives us things like structure, tradeoffs, and clarity.

But, our emotional system gives us something different It helps us evaluate meaning, sense alignment, and understand the decision we can live with.

There’s actually research that makes this clearer.

Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio studied patients who had damage to the parts of the brain responsible for emotion. The patients could think logically, analyze options and explain tradeoffs. But, they couldn’t actually decide. It wasn’t for lack of intelligence. It was for lack of key emotional signals.

The epiphany for me was this:

For decisions that involve people you love, or hard decisions where the stakes are high, meaning matters more than facts and logic.

In a way, the spreadsheet had everything. Except the answer we needed.

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Where We Get Stuck

It’s easy to get stuck on a decision, especially with the unlimited amount of information out there. It’s also easy to get caught up in endless options.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz describes this well in The Paradox of Choice.

When options increase, we expect decisions to get easier. But often, the opposite happens. We tend to over analyze, second guess, and delay.

More options don’t always create clarity. Often times, they create paralysis.

An Unproductive Pattern

Over time, I’ve noticed a particular pattern in decision-making. There’s a point in certain decisions where:

• New information stops changing your view.

• You find yourself thinking through the same points again and again.

• The analysis gets deeper, but not really more useful.

But for some reason, we keep going. Opening that extra tab. Creating another prompt. Running another comparison.

Because continuing to analyze feels productive. In some ways, comforting.

But often, it’s something else…

Avoidance.

I’m not saying thinking is bad. But there is a difference between thinking for clarity versus thinking for comfort.

For my wife and me, the spreadsheet wasn’t helping decide. It was helping us delay.

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What Actually Helped

Our decision didn’t come from the spreadsheet. It came from honest conversations with my wife. Talking with our boys. Imagining them in each environment. And paying attention to what felt right, and what didn’t.

When we finally made the decision, it wasn’t in a single moment, but rather a culmination of signals that formed over time.

We definitely didn’t feel 100% certain, but we felt a sense of relief after.

Here’s the honest truth. We still don’t know if it was the “right” decision. It may not be the best one, but its one my wife and I chose to live with.

And for now, that’s enough.

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The Decision Signals Model

Our hardest decisions in life aren’t about finding the perfect option. They’re about choosing something you can live with.

Over time, I’ve started to think about decisions in three phases:

1. Understand (Logic leads)

Use structure to make sense of your options.

• Gather relevant data

• Compare tradeoffs

• Understand the differences between the options.

At this stage, analysis expands your understanding.

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2. Recognize (Signals emerge)

Notice when thinking stops improving the decision.

• New information no longer changes your view

• You keep revisiting the same considerations

• Analysis adds detail, but not clarity

This is the turning point.

Continuing to analyze may feel productive.

But often, it becomes a form of delay.

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3. Decide (Alignment leads)

Shift from optimizing the “best” option to choosing what you can live with.

• Bring in reflection and conversation

• Pay attention to what feels right

• Look for internal relief, not perfect certainty

The decision doesn’t feel like 100% confidence.

It feels like the back-and-forth starts to quiet down.

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Looking Back

If I could go back to that night in the SUV, I wouldn’t throw the spreadsheet away. After all, it helped me understand the landscape.

But, I would recognize the moment when it had done its job. And when it was time to do mine.

You' don’t always get to know if a decision is right.

Not right away.

Sometimes not ever.

But you can know if a decision is something you can live with.

And most of the time, that’s enough….

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Both / And is about making decisions you can live with.

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