Episode 935: The Pros and Cons of Pros and Cons Lists

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 935 of the inspired stewardship podcast. Hi

[00:00:07] Bas Lebesque: Bas Lebesque. And I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling, having the ability to overcome your limiting beliefs is key.

[00:00:26] And one way to inspire to do that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with Scott Maderer.

[00:00:34] Scott Maderer: so when it comes to your money and you're thinking about using a pro con list, make sure you're using it for those decisions. Small decisions that it fits best. Not for those large life-changing decisions that we often use them for, but end up manipulating them to make sure that we actually get the answer.

[00:00:57] Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the [00:01:00] inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasure. For your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast, we'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:23] And today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about using a pro and con list for decision-making. I also share the pros and cons of using a pro and con list, and I share why they are useful indeed, but not the only tool to use when making it. As we talk about stewarding your treasures.

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[00:02:13] One of the ways that I've seen people do a lot of decision-making when it comes to spending money is using a pro con list. This is something that you've probably done way back in school and you've probably done it numerous times since then, where you take a piece of paper and you fold it in half.

[00:02:31] Divide the paper in the middle, down the middle of the page. And on the left, you write pros and on the right, your icons, and then you make a list of all of the goods and bads about a particular decision, or maybe you doing it for good and bad for against advantages, disadvantages, pros, and cons.

[00:02:50] These ideas is one of the ways that we've almost always frame decision-making, but the problem is. A pro and con list [00:03:00] has pros and cons as well. Making a pro and con list is not always the best. Our only are good way of making a decision. And yet we do that a lot with money making decisions. We think.

[00:03:14] Should we spend money on a new couch and then we divide the paper in two. And on the left-hand side, we write the pros and on the right-hand side, rewrite the cons, or maybe it's a bigger decision should we quit our job? And on the left, we were at the pros and on the rights we write the cons and then we try to use that to make it better.

[00:03:33] The truth is that when you think about the kinds of questions. That you can use a pro and con list for some of them work really well. And some of them work less. When you're thinking about questions, like what house should you buy? Should you quit? Should I quit my job? What kind of device or computer should I buy for my home office?

[00:03:59] Should [00:04:00] we go ahead and get a pet or not? Where should we go on vacation? The interesting thing is the one of those questions that's pretty discreet and framed in a way that lends itself to thinking about pros and cons is should we get a pet? All the rest of them are very large questions that have a lot of subjectivity.

[00:04:21] They have a lot of emotion tied to. And because of that, they have multiple options. They have different things more than just a yes or a no decision, the best questions for a pro and a con are ones that lend themselves to a single yes or no option. Should I get a pet or not? You know whether or not you should quit.

[00:04:45] Your job seems at first glance to have a yes or a no, but that is actually not true for one thing. What about getting and reducing the amount of work? What about working from home? Some, what about all of the other things that affect whether or not it's the [00:05:00] time to quit your job? A pro and con list can be a good way to start brainstorming on a complicated question like that, but it's usually not the best way to actually answer the question.

[00:05:12] What's more, you can manipulate a pro and con list to actually answer the question the way you already determined you wanted to answer it. The truth is it's simple to use a pro and con list, but it's also one that you can use to reinforce a decision that you actually already made. And now you're just looking for an excuse to keep that decision in place.

[00:05:35] It's not always helpful to use a pro and con list. It looks fancy. It looks complicated. It looks objective, but it's really not. Now again, don't get me wrong. I use them pros and cons lists all the time and decision-making around money, but they're not the only tool that you can use. They're one option and there's something that you can use to have.[00:06:00]

[00:06:00] But they're not the only option. You also need to be able to get the input from other people, ask advice. You also want to use some sort of decision matrix tool if there's multiple options and think about other than yes and no. What other possibilities exist? You want to make sure that you're using them for options that are very discreet and relatively easy to answer.

[00:06:23] Not really large decisions. Because that's where they shine the best and they actually help you, but you can also use things like ranking goals and you can use ways of including feelings and judgments and emotion as well and giving things a scale and then use that to help weight the pro-con list and make better decisions.

[00:06:49] There are lots of tools out there for decisions. And all of them are useful, but the key is to know, when are you using the one that fits best? So when it [00:07:00] comes to your money and you're thinking about using a pro con list, make sure you're using it for those discreet small decisions that it fits best.

[00:07:11] Not for those large life-changing decisions that we often use them for, but end up manipulating them to make sure that we actually get the answers. That we already wanted from the beginning. Thanks for listening.

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