You already know the pros and cons method. You probably used it in school. The problem is that most people do it badly: they scribble a few vague points, stare at the two columns, and then pick whatever they wanted in the first place. This guide fixes that.
By the end, you will be able to run a pros and cons decision making session that actually surfaces a clear answer, usually in 30 to 60 minutes for a normal life decision. Smaller calls take five minutes. Bigger ones, like a job offer or a move, deserve two sittings.
What you need before you start
- A pen and paper, or a blank document. Something you can edit without worrying about neatness.
- A quiet 20 minutes. You can do this in one block or split it, but avoid doing it while tired.
- The actual options written down. Not "should I move?" but "stay in this city" versus "move to the other one."
- A rough sense of your deadline. If the decision has no deadline, set one yourself, or you will keep circling.
That last point matters more than it sounds. Open-ended decisions rot.
Step 1: Name the decision as a choice between specific options
Write the decision at the top of the page in this format: "Choose between A and B." If there are three options, write all three.
Why it matters: vague questions produce vague lists. "Should I take the job?" invites anxiety. "Take the offer at Company X versus stay at my current role" invites analysis. The two feel completely different to work with.
Practical tip: if you cannot name the options, you are not ready to weigh them. You are still in discovery. The comparison tool on this site can help you lay options side by side before you start scoring.
Step 2: Set your criteria before you list anything
This is the step almost everyone skips. Before writing a single pro or con, write down what actually matters to you. For a job: pay, commute, growth, how you feel on Sunday night. For a purchase: cost, durability, how often you will really use it.
Why it matters: without criteria, your pros and cons become whatever you can remember in the moment. You will list "the office has free coffee" next to "it pays 15% less" as if they carry equal weight.
Practical tip: aim for three to six criteria. More than six and everything blurs. If you want a structured way to capture these, the ready-to-use checklists are a decent starting point, though you will still need to trim them to fit your situation.
Step 3: Brainstorm without judging
Fill both columns fast. Set a timer for 10 minutes and write everything that comes to mind, even the petty stuff. "My friend lives there." "The commute is annoying." Do not sort or rank yet.
Why it matters: judging while generating kills the flow. You will self-censor the honest items, which are usually the ones that matter. The embarrassment of writing "I just like how it sounds" is a signal, not a reason to stop.
Practical tip: write cons with the same energy as pros. People naturally pad the pros column and rush the cons. Force yourself to find at least as many cons as pros, even if some are minor.
Step 4: Attach a weight to each item
Here is where the method earns its keep. Next to each pro and con, write a number from 1 to 5. One means it barely matters. Five means it could decide the whole thing.
Why it matters: an unweighted list is a trap. It lets a pile of trivial pros outvote one serious con. Weighting forces you to say out loud that "great salary" is a 5 and "nicer building" is a 2.
Practical tip: if everything is a 4 or 5, you are not weighing, you are hedging. Force a spread. Most lists end up with two or three items at 5, a handful at 3 or 4, and a long tail of 1s and 2s.
Step 5: Do the arithmetic, then ignore it
Add the pros, add the cons, compare. That gives you a rough signal.
Why it matters: the number is useful as a reality check, not as a verdict. If the totals are close, that itself is information: this decision is genuinely balanced, and the tiebreaker will be something the columns do not capture.
Practical tip: use a simple score, pros minus cons. If pros score 34 and cons score 31, you have a slight lean toward the option, not a mandate. Do not treat a three-point gap as decisive.
Step 6: Run the reversal test
Flip the decision. Imagine you already chose option A. Now write the pros and cons of that choice, as if defending it to a friend.
Why it matters: we are better at spotting flaws in decisions we have already made than in ones we are still considering. The reversal flips your brain into review mode, which is sharper.
Practical tip: pay attention to what you feel when you imagine telling someone about your choice. If imagining option B makes you feel relief, that is worth more than a two-point score difference.
Step 7: Check the reversible parts
Ask which parts of this decision you can undo, and how expensive undoing would be. A wrong job might cost you months. A wrong sofa might cost you a return shipping fee. These are not the same size of mistake.
Why it matters: big irreversible decisions deserve more analysis than reversible ones. The pros and cons method works for both, but your threshold for "good enough" should shift.
Practical tip: if the decision is cheap to reverse, stop overthinking. Pick the option with the better first year and adjust later. If it is expensive to reverse, give the list a second pass on a different day. The interactive decision trees can help you map the consequences when the stakes are high.
Step 8: Commit, and write down your reasoning
Make the call. Then write one paragraph explaining why, and date it.
Why it matters: you will second-guess yourself later, usually around week three. Having the original reasoning written down stops you from rewriting history. It also makes you a better decision maker over time, because you can compare what you expected with what happened.
Practical tip: keep these notes in one place. After a year, you will have a small personal record of how you actually decide, which is more useful than any generic rule.
Pro tips
- Do the list in two sessions if the decision is big. Sleep changes what feels important.
- Talk it through with one person who will disagree with you. Not a committee. One person.
- Write cons in the same voice as pros. If you would not say it out loud about someone else's decision, do not write it about yours.
- Separate "I want this" from "this is good for me." Both are valid, but they are different columns.
- Watch for items that appear in both columns. "More money" as a pro and "more hours" as a con are often the same fact wearing two hats.
- If the list keeps growing, your criteria are too broad. Trim and restart.
Common pitfalls
Listing only the obvious. Salary, distance, price. The items that actually decide things are often things like "how I feel on Sunday night" or "whether I can be honest there." Push past the first five items.
Treating all items as equal. A list of twenty unweighted pros can lose to one unweighted con, and vice versa. Weighting is the whole point.
Confusing the list with the answer. The list organizes your thinking. It does not make the decision. If your gut and your list disagree, that is worth examining, not ignoring.
Doing it once and never revisiting. Circumstances change. A decision that made sense in March might not in September. Revisit if something material shifts.
Asking too many people. Ten opinions is noise. One or two thoughtful disagreements is signal. The recommendation tool can help you structure what you actually value, but it will not tell you what to do, and neither will your group chat.
Useful resources
- A blank notebook or document you control. This is genuinely the main tool.
- The articles on this site, which walk through specific decisions like jobs, moves, and purchases.
- The glossary, useful when a term in a guide is unfamiliar, especially around expected value and opportunity cost.
- Your own past decisions. Go back and read what you wrote six months ago. It is a surprisingly effective teacher.
- The site search, if you want to find a guide for the exact decision you are facing.
If a resource claims to predict your outcome, verify it. Decision tools structure thinking; they do not forecast.
FAQ
How many pros and cons should I have? Ten to twenty items total is a reasonable range for a normal decision. Fewer and you have not thought it through. More and you are probably padding.
What if the scores are tied? A tie is a real result. It means the decision will be settled by something outside the list, like timing, gut feel, or a constraint you have not named. Name it, then decide.
Does this work for small decisions? Yes, but skip the weighting. For small calls, a quick mental pro and con is enough. Save the full process for decisions you will still be thinking about next month.
What if I already know what I want? Then use the list to stress-test it. If your preferred option survives honest scrutiny, you have earned the confidence. If it does not, you have learned something useful.
Can I use this for group decisions? Yes. Have each person write their own list first, then compare. The disagreements are the valuable part.
One last thing
The pros and cons method is not glamorous, and that is exactly why it works. It slows you down just enough to see what you are actually weighing. Do it properly once, and you will notice how often the answer was there before you started, waiting for you to write it down.
The tools on this site are decision-support, not personal advice. Results only reflect what you enter, the decision is always yours.
Ready to act on what you just read? Explorethe site search, the practical guides and articles on this site or the glossary of key terms. The rest of this site is built to help you take the next step.