We live in a world that is far too complex to be grasped by a single mind. That's why I'm a big fan of Heuristics to make decisions. We all employ them all the time, without paying much attention to them, but they're a powerful way to make quick, imperfect yet "good enough" decisions day to day without having to overanalyze things and spend too much understanding things that don't matter that much.
For example, I know from experience that the news is a source of uncontrollable anxiety that makes me less productive and cause undue stress. As a result, I tend to avoid every and any possible source of information that could cause that. Another example is when I write these blog posts for your enjoyment, there are 4 rules I follow: a minimum of 150 words per piece (to make the pieces digestible for the reader while fulfilling my quota of 3000 published words a month), writing in plain language that can be intelligible to the non-initiated (so that I don't bore you within 3 sentences), keeping the subject matter at least tangentially if only tenuously relevant to my work as a communicator and lastly keeping the tone light and fun (so that I don't get bored writing these). I don’t worry about much else as these rules ensure that the work is fulfilling its goal most of the time.
All of these intuitive, empirical decisions that are made aren't perfect and don't work 100% of the time, but they work well enough to not fret over their imperfection.
In the design process, heuristics can be very useful to reach certain goals without fretting over every single detail.
What might be some heuristics that you employ in your work?
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