Someone in my family is one of the most principled people I know. It's one of the things I admire most about them but occasionally, as a decision scientist, it makes me want to sit them down.

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A few years ago they were facing a significant business decision. A long-standing relationship had soured. Someone they'd worked with for years had, in their view, acted without integrity. The question was whether to sever the relationship entirely and publicly, to make a clear statement that this kind of behaviour was unacceptable to them. Their values were unambiguous on the matter. You don't tolerate dishonesty. You stand for something. They had a decision and they were ready to act on it.

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What they hadn't fully examined was what would happen next. Not in the immediate next, the consequences of ending the relationship were clear and they'd accepted them. But further out. Who else would be affected? What would the professional landscape look like in two years? What doors would close not because of what the other person had done, but because of how they responded to it?

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They were making a values-based decision. The problem was that strong values in the present moment were taking over: narrowing the frame and overshadowing other values. They were so focused on doing the right thing that they hadn't looked far enough ahead to see what the right thing would cost and how it would compromise other values.

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I convinced them to wait two days before sending that email.

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What’s actually happening

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Getting distance is not procrastination. It's a deliberate intervention on your own cognition.

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When we're close to a decision (emotionally, temporally, physically) our thinking contracts around the most vivid, most urgent signals. Whatever feels important right now gets overweighted. Whatever is further away, whether in time or abstraction, gets underweighted. This is well-documented in behavioural science: we are systematically worse at making decisions when we're in the thick of the situation that requires them.

Distance loosens that grip. Time, physical space, even the act of imagining someone else in your position - these all shift the level at which you process the decision. Details recede. Patterns become visible. Second-order consequences, the ones two or three steps downstream, start to come into focus.

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The situation my relative faced is a common one. Not because people are careless, but because values are powerful. When a decision feels morally clear, when you know what you stand for and the situation seems to call for it, it takes real discipline to slow down and ask: and then what? What am I msising?

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Second-order consequences are the outcomes of your outcomes. Not "I end the relationship" but "I end the relationship, and then _________ ." Not "I take the principled stand" but "I take the principled stand, and then _________ ." Strong emotions, strong values, and time pressure all suppress this kind of thinking. They push us toward the first-order question (what do I do right now) and away from the longer arc.

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This is not an argument against acting on your values. It's an argument for making sure you understand the full picture before you act, and the values you may be sacrificing.

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How to get distance

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The strongest fix is simply time. Not indefinite delay but a specific pause. Two weeks, one week, even 48 hours if the decision is genuinely urgent. Enough space for the emotional temperature to drop and for thoughts that weren't available to you in the heat of the moment to surface.

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If you want to make that pause more structured, the 10-10-10 tool is one of the most effective methods I know for a decision that's sitting too close. Ask yourself three questions:

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• How will I feel about this decision in ten minutes? That's the immediate emotional response, often the one driving you right now.

• How will I feel about it in ten months? That's the medium-term view, consequences that are real and near enough to matter but far enough that the present emotion has faded.

• How will I feel about it in ten years? That's the level at which values tend to be most honestly assessed. Not what I feel is right today, but what I'll think I was right about, looking back.

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The three answers are rarely the same. In the gaps between them you get to unearth some useful thoughts.

 

My relative waited. They came back to the decision with a clearer sense of what mattered most to them not just in the moment, but across the whole arc of what they were building. They still acted on their values. They always do. But the way they acted looked different once they'd had time to see further than the immediate situation. The response was more measured, more strategic, and ultimately more consistent with their intention of who they actually wanted to be than the one they'd been ready to make on day one.

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Distance didn't change their values. It helped them honour them more completely.

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So far we've looked at tools we use alone or in one-on-one conversation. The same problems (autopilot, familiarity, skipping steps) show up in a different form when we try to decide together.