How to stop jumping from one idea to another

It was a beautiful sunny day but I was crying my eyes out. I was the happiest I've ever been and the saddest I've ever been.

I was 10 years old a we'd just moved from Soviet Russia to Israel. It was a strange new world for me.

I loved ice cream as a kid, but we only had one flavor of ice cream in the USSR - the Plombir. It was invented in 1936 at the behest of Joseph Stalin and was still sold unchanged in the 80's when I was growing up.

It never occured to me ice cream could have flavors!

The next day after we landed in Israel a family friend took me to get ice cream from a local parlor. I'd never seen anything like that.

She asked me what flavor I wanted. I was paralized. I couldn't make up my mind. I was terrified of making the wrong decision. I've never been faced with so much choice.

After what seemed like an eternity I pointed to a chocolate flavor that seemed safe. The guy behind the counter put a huge scoop in the cone for me.

And then it happened.

My friend asked me "what else?"

I didn't understand. What did she mean by "what else"? Could I have multiple flavors?

She said I could have as many as I wanted.

I started crying. I was the happiest I've ever been and the saddest I've ever been.

It was a piotal moment.

I now lived in a Western society and the need to choose was now a constant companion.

...

Many people find it hard to make decisions, to choose from a list of options, to commit to one option out of dozens.

That includes choosing the next business idea, SaaS, or app to work on.

It's a tough choice since most of the information we need to make that decision is missing. We want to choose the right idea, the idea that will succeed beyond our wildest dreams. But we can't know that ahead of time, regardless of how much information we collect on each idea.

Eventually we need to make a call.

...

Here's a quick and very low tech method I use every time I need to choose between many options:

1. Write out all the options on small pieces of paper and spread them on your desk or on the floor.

2. Start tearing these notes one by one. Each note that you tear and throw out is an idea you're giving up on, something you will not touch in the foreseeable future.

3. Continue doing this until you get to the last 3 or 4 ideas. It's painful to give up on your ideas but it's worthwhile. You're separating the wheat from the chaff.

4. Push yourself just a little further to tear up the last few ideas until you're left with only one. The one you absolutely can't give up on. This is the one.

I guarantee that if you go through this process, you won't regret choosing the idea you're left with.

It may not succeed beyond your wildest dreams, but it will be a worthy and exciting attempt.