Taking These 5 LinkedIn Learning Courses May Be the Best Decision You’ll Ever Make

According to some, we do it 35,000 times a day—make decisions.

Chocolate or vanilla? Speak up in a meeting or keep quiet? Buy or sell? Left or right? Quit my job and start a new business or stay? Give the customer a refund or show them the door? Take on that new project or say no? Double click or keep scrolling? Invest in this idea or that one? Quit now or keep going? Side of french fries or a side of salad?

No matter what your job is, we all do the same thing—we make decisions—the majority of the time without much thought. And yet, the decisions we make have an outsized impact on our ability to succeed in business and in life.

Deciding to invest time and effort in learning how to make better decisions makes a lot of sense. But considering the LinkedIn Learning Library contains over 20,000 courses—hundreds related to the art and skill of decision making—how do you possibly decide what course is best for you?

Allow me to help.

Here's a list of 5 of my favorite courses on decision making—and they are all less than an hour in length! These are courses that I find myself going back to again and again because they are insightful, make me think differently, and are taught by amazing and engaging instructors.

1. Crafting Questions to Make Better Decisions

To make informed decisions, you need information—and to get the right information, you have to ask the right questions. In this 34 minute course by Ozan Varol, bestselling author of Think Like A Rocket Scientist and Awaken Your Genius, gives you real-world examples and easy-to-apply techniques to help you learn to ask better questions. 

2. The Secret to Better Decisions: Stop Hoarding Chips

We often know what decision we should make, but avoid doing it because of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. We hold on too strongly to prior decisions we’ve made, preventing us from moving forward or doing what’s best. In his usual engaging and storytelling style, Seth Godin 🌔 will help you become a better decision maker in just 47 minutes.

3. Dan Ariely on Making Decisions

Why do you procrastinate when making decisions? How can you make decisions under pressure? How can you make decisions when you don’t have enough information? Or too much information? Behavioral scientist and bestselling author Dan Ariely explains what goes on inside your brain when you make decisions and shares tips on how to make better decisions. It’s 57 minutes of insight you won’t want to miss.

4. Nano Tips to Think Faster and Make Better Decisions with Shadé Zahrai

Deciding whether or not to take this course should be a quick one: it’s less than 8 minutes long! In a series of short nano videos, Shadé Zahrai MBA LLB shares a collection of quick tips that will help you apply critical thinking, avoid common pitfalls, and ask better questions—all to help you make decisions quickly throughout your day.

5. Think Like a Lawyer to Make Decisions and Solve Problems

Leading up to the iconic “you can’t handle the truth” scene from the movie A Few Good Men, Tom Cruise, playing the part of the lawyer, pauses before making the decision on whether to press his key witness played by Jack Nicholson. In this short 27 minute course, law professor Kimberly Wehle walks through how lawyers think and prepare for making decisions, and how you can apply those concepts to the decisions you make every day.

Bonus Course: Decision Intelligence

Decision making is the most valuable skill you can learn according to Cassie Kozyrkov, former Chief Decision Scientist at Google. This course, while the longest of the bunch I’ve listed here at 1 hour and 25 minutes, is arguably the most insightful. If you want to truly understand how decision making works, learn what makes a decision “good” or “bad”, and how you can leverage data and technology to upgrade your decision making skills, block some time off on your calendar for this one. I might suggest scheduling a few short blocks over the course of a week rather than try and get it all in at once (although Cassie’s engaging delivery and teaching style may lead to healthy binging).