How do you make your toughest decisions? Write a pro/con list? Go with your gut? Have your own system that you've perfected over the years?

A few years ago, when my husband came home from the store with a bottle of sunscreen for our toddler, I had a mild panic attack.

When faced with a tough decision, a lot of us will hem and haw for hours or days, looking up more information, thinking through the options, and procrastinating far more than necessary. For most decisions, it's much better to pick an option, and just move on, and the two-minute rule can help.

The coin flip, the ultimate 50-50 choice, is actually a little biased. According to a Stanford study, even a fair coin is about 51 per cent likely to land on the same face it started on. And if you spin instead of flipping, even a slightly weighted coin is much more likely to land on its heavier side. (A spun penny lands tails-up 80 per cent of the time.) But there's a cool maths trick for getting a fair result from an unfair coin.

Figuring out where or what to eat with your partner only gets harder the more you get into a routine. To avoid the "Well, what do you want to eat?" cycle, try the 5-3-1 method.

When you're faced with making a decision that involves yourself, it's difficult to be rational because you're trapped in your own world and biases. One way to get past these is to ask yourself, "If this was about someone else that I love and care about, what would I tell them?"

Major bottlenecks in businesses are often caused by indecision. It could be that a business owner is waiting on more data before making a decision on a big ticket purchase. They could be too busy to stop and make up their minds on something that needs to be done or perhaps they're easily distracted by new options that are presented to them. But avoiding the tough decisions that need to be made can paralyse a business, leading to lost opportunities. Here's some advice from small business expert Dr Greg Chapman to help business owners tackle the problem of indecisiveness.

How many online reviews do you have to read before you buy a pack of batteries? How many experts do you have to consult before eating a hamburger? Unless you're Frank Sinatra, you don't have to get the absolute best of everything.

Meetings where decisions are made but no one wants to be accountable for them are the worst meetings. Keep that "action to decision" ratio low by ending every meeting with an "accountability summary" everyone gets afterwards, so everyone knows what they're responsible for.

One of the hardest things in life is to know when to keep going and when to move on. On the one hand, perseverance and grit are key to achieving success in any field. Anyone who masters their craft will face moments of doubt and somehow find the inner resolve to keep going.

Most people cringe when they see the words "money" and "happiness" in the same sentence, and rightfully so. Money doesn't equal happiness. You can, however, use money in a way that satisfies your own values. To find those values, it helps to consider your happiest moments.

Motivation is fleeting, which is why it's important to build a solid system for getting stuff done. This way, you make it as easy as possible to achieve your goals, even on low-motivation days. When you second guess your system, though, you defeat the purpose. David Allen reminds us: trust your system.

Financial decisions and life decisions often go hand in hand. Do you buy a home or move to a different city? Do you start your own business or keep working your 9 to 5? To make your money work for you in the best way possible, it's important to establish what financial planner Mindy Crary calls your "Chief Initiative."

Having a plan is good. Waiting until you have the perfect plan before you take action, on the other hand, can keep you from doing anything at all.

History is full of evil dictators, and while the had their share of bad qualities, it's undeniable they were efficient at getting things done. Here's what we can learn from them, despite their evil nature.

Games like Settlers of Catan are "resource management games," where you make difficult choices and focus on long-term goals (like building the largest army). It's a lot like life: You have goals, opportunities, and decisions along the way to get where you want to go. You can apply that same game logic to make the right choices.

Being faced with a decision -- even between two positive things -- can be a source of stress. Make life easier on yourself by accepting "good enough" decisions when you can.

We're all obsessed with finding the best -- the best TV, the best laptop, the best...toothpaste. At a certain point, though, you're just wasting time. Ramit Sethi explains it well: don't spend more than two seconds on decisions that don't really matter.

When you've got a weighty decision on your hands, it can be tough to know what to do. Your emotions and biases can get in the way, because you're too close to the situation. To help make your decision, think about how you'd advise a friend.