Welcome back to edition #6 of Pazazz, a monthly newsletter to help you build mind blowing communities.

If you’re new here, welcome. You can catch the most recent editions of this newsletter here.

So what’s the focus today?

We’re unpacking the question: How can you make better decisions?

Making better decisions is crucial when it comes to every day life, especially if you’re building an impactful community. We make countless decisions every day that impact both ourselves, our members and the business.

When we assess incoming opportunities and consistently make great decisions, it allows us to keep moving swiftly and effortlessly in our roles. Making aligned decisions helps us maintain trust and authenticity, as our choices consistently reflect our commitment to our community.

We can also save a lot of time when we make the right decision on a regular basis because we avoid backtracking or having to redo things.

Not to mention, efficient decision-making prevents overcommitting, ensuring we can deliver on our promises and maintain a high level of output. So let's make sure you stick to the right path and have an easy way to make better decisions.

Sounds good? It sure does.

We’ll also unpack in this edition:

• 3 frameworks to make better decisions

• How can you apply this to your own role?

• What goes on behind the scenes of Paz’s life?

And so much more. Now grab a chai latte, play this music and let’s dive in.

3 frameworks to make better decisions

#1 Decision Making Criteria

I like to have an easy to follow process to help make better decisions. This framework is called a Decision Making Criteria. It is a set of questions that helps you assess incoming opportunities for you and your community.

The criteria includes 7 questions which include:

1. Is this values aligned?

2. Do I have capacity for this?

3. Will this impact the community?

4. Will this generate revenue?

5. Will I enjoy this?

6. Is this a favour I need to return?

7. Can this be outsourced to someone else?

I’ve also drawn the criteria for you with the respective outcomes of how I would respond:

Using this decision making criteria has helped me to stay focused, not overcommit myself and make decisions faster as a founder and community builder.

For example, I recently used this criterion when I was invited to speak at the GCUC Conference in Utah, America this April. It’s an annual conference bringing together those in the coworking and flexible workspace industry, and it’s their biggest event yet.

I was thrilled. Similar to that feeling when your name gets called out to win a prize at a raffle. Did they really just say Paz? I couldn’t stop smiling and already was imagining the amazing people I was going to meet. Coworking is such a ripe space for community building as well - it was so aligned.

But before I accepted the offer, I put the opportunity to the test.

1. Is this values aligned? HELL YES. These were my people. I had attended a GCUC Sydney and loved it. The people, the conversations and everything about it. It was right up my alley and highly beneficial for the business and our community.

2. Do I have capacity for this? Hmmm. I looked at my calendar and the conference is the first week of our Community Cohort #4 program. No way was I going to be able to fly from Australia > America, speak at this conference, enjoy the experience and run the first week of our program.

It was a straight up no as I would be over-committing myself. So I moved straight to the bonus question 7. Can this be outsourced to anyone else? I thought about if there was anyone else who could represent The Community Collective on our behalf but given our contacts are all in Australia, it wasn’t feasible to send anyone over to America.

Instead, I took a deep breath and replied to let them know that I was unable to take part, but would love to hear about any other future opportunities. Whilst I was feeling slightly sad to be passing up this amazing experience, I felt aligned and strong in myself, knowing that my decision was keeping me on track as to where I was needed most.

I hope it helps you to do the same 🧡 A huge shout out to Milly Tamati and Melia Rayner for sharing similar frameworks that have inspired this one too.

#2 Decision Making Journal

Another tip I learnt to help make better decisions is to keep a decision journal. How does that work?

A Decision Journal is your decision-making diary. It captures the "what," "why," and the actual "what happened." It's your defence against judgment clouded by bias and emotion. By tracking decisions, you uncover patterns and fine-tune your choices for better outcomes. It's like your personal decision upgrade tool!

Creating a Decision Journal is easy. Grab a notebook, pen, and some time. Include the decision date, context, options, evaluation criteria, your choice, reasoning and the expected outcome.

Then once you've made the decision and some time has gone by, come back and write down the actual result of what happened. Did it play out as you thought? Give yourself feedback and note down the lessons learned.

The more decisions you make and the closer you get to your expected outcome, the stronger you will be in making the right decision on a consistent basis.

For example here’s an entry from a past bad decision I made:

Context: A member had reached out, offering to share a presentation with our community members about a specific topic they were passionate about. Usually we didn’t accept speaker offers as we designed the meetup topics based on the most relevant challenges of our members and then we would go out and find the most suitable person to share their knowledge on that topic.

Decision Options:
1 = We politely decline and explain why. However we actually were running behind in sourcing a speaker for our next meetup so this would delay us in finding someone.

2 = We accept and continue on with our meetup process to bring the session to life and invite members to join.

Choice & Reasoning: After asking about past speaking experience, we decided to allow the member to run a session. We thought that having a member-led meetup would be a great way to support them and educate our members at the same time. Plus we were running behind schedule so this saved us some time.

Expected Outcome: We would have a successful meetup with plenty of members turning up, our member-speaker would share their knowledge and we would all collectively learn together.

Actual Outcome: It was our lowest attended session in 2 years. Registrations were a struggle to get across the line and we had people drop off half way. The member was actually a great speaker and the content was great - but the topic wasn’t actually that relevant to community builders so it missed the mark in the end. Plus it actually took us more time to personally invite members to join the meetup than it would’ve to just invite another speaker to join or even push the date back a few weeks.

Thanks to writing this process and decision down, we learnt our lesson.

#3 Decision Making Deadline

Remember, sometimes not making a decision and sitting in the ambiguity and burden of having to get back to someone is much worse than just actually deciding what to do. Most of the time you’re far better off just picking a road in a more timely matter than sitting in the indecisiveness (ugh I hate that feeling). The quicker you make a decision, the quicker you'll realise whether it feels aligned or not.

Using a Decision Making Deadline is a great process to help you make faster decisions and get to the bottom to which path feels most aligned.

How does it work? Simply pick a deadline for when you want to make the decision by and put it in your calendar. Then make sure you stick to it!

What if the decision you make on that date doesn't feel aligned? That's great. You now have your answer for what the right decision is. You can confidently make another decision and stick with that.

In 2023 I had to make a big decision. We were trying to decide whether to close our entire free meetup community at The Community Collective that had been running for the past 2.5 years. It was the reason why our business even existed in the first place, but there were signs of members wanting to connect in new ways after the pandemic and we needed to keep up with the changing tides.

It had been weighing on my mind for a total of 6 months… 6 MONTHS. Ugh. I got so sick of sitting on the fence that I gave myself a deadline to make this decision by 1 December 2023. I put it in my calendar and it suddenly became real. I instantly felt a sign of relief knowing that it was coming.

It also catapulted me into action. I created a plan about HOW to make this decision. There were a lot of moving parts and I needed to gather things quickly. Things started to move swiftly and I involved more people in the process - reducing the decision burden off my shoulders.

In the end, we decided to close our free meetup community. We’re actually deep in the process as I write this and I feel so aligned with the direction we’re taking instead.

Curious to hear more about this community closure decision? Read the full process here.

How can you apply this to your own role?

Grab a good old piece of paper and a pen. Play this music and write down your answers to the following questions:

1. Decision Making Criteria: What questions will you use to assess incoming opportunities? Where will this criteria live so that you can easily access it?

2. Decision Making Journal: Which day each week will you write your decisions in your journal? Where is this journal going to live? Will it be physical or digital?

3. Decision Making Deadline: How much time will you give yourself to make a decision by? Where is the best place to mark down this deadline so you don’t miss it?

You made it

Alrighty my friend, you made it to the end. I hope you’ve found some value to help you make more aligned choices for yourself and your community.

If it has helped you, I’d love to hear it. Feel free to leave a comment here (plus see the Decision Making Criteria out in the wild).

I’ll be back in your inbox on 17th to answer your most pressing questions.

Until then,

Paz Pisarski
Co-Founder of The Community Collective

You can expect this newsletter on the 17th of every month.
Enjoyed this edition? Forward it to a friend and make both of us smile.

Bonus Section

Still reading huh? Well you made it to the bonus section where I share an insight into my life.

Proud moment: I’ve been learning how to drive a manual car as my boyfriend has 2 of them and I’m slowly started to get the hang of it woohoo.

Challenging moment: Whilst I’ve been using these frameworks to make better decisions, I still feel like I over-commit myself. I still end up with way too much in my calendar, so I’m still working on it!

Personal moment: I’ve just spent 2 weeks skiing in Canada with my brother, Uncle and Aunty to celebrate my dad’s birthday and it’s been amazing. To spend quality time with the fam whilst sliding along the slopes has been truly memorable. My dad also loved his birthday!

See you next time.