Every day, apparently, we make around 35,000 decisions — from whether to hit snooze on the alarm to what to watch before finally admitting it's time for bed. A recent Barclays study found that one in five of us write a to-do list, then spend half an hour deciding which item to tackle first, we spend 20 minutes flicking through channels before settling on something to watch, and nearly an hour a day just deciding what to eat.
I read that and recognised myself immediately. I like to think I make sensible, well-reasoned choices. The truth is, most of the time I decide with my feelings and only afterwards go looking for the reasons to justify decisions.
It turns out there's good psychology behind this. We have two ways of thinking: one fast and instinctive, one slow and deliberate. The fast one usually makes the decision. The slow one arrives later to build the case for what we've already chosen. I suspect this is true well beyond the shops. We're moved by how something makes us feel long before we've reasoned our way to it — and only afterwards do we dress the choice up in sensible language.
Which makes me think differently about my own work, and Gingerbread's too. If people decide with feelings first, then all the facts, features and figures in the world won't move someone who hasn't already been moved. The logic and data matters — but it does its work after the decision, reassuring a choice that's already been made.
So maybe the real question isn't "have I explained this well enough?" It's "have I made someone feel something?" Trust, relief, excitement, belonging, the sense that this was made for someone like them. Get that right, and the facts will do the rest.
I'd love to know — when you last made a big decision, was it really the logic that swayed you? Or, if you're honest, was it something you felt first?