Making Choices with Data

Every day, you make dozens, maybe hundreds, of choices. Some big (Should I switch jobs?), some small (Should I get tacos or a salad?). Whether you realize it or not, data is helping you decide, or could be helping if you knew how to tap into it.

Let’s break it down. Making choices with data doesn’t mean building a dashboard or running a regression model (unless you want to, in which case, we love that for you). It just means using information, real, measurable stuff, to guide your thinking.

Say you’re trying to choose a new lunch spot. You could:

Look up star ratings (quantitative data)

Read customer reviews (qualitative data)

Check how far it is from your office (spatial data)

Peek at the menu to see if it fits your dietary needs (categorical data)

Boom. You just made a data-informed decision.

The truth is, we all use data to make decisions, we just don’t always call it that. Whether you’re tracking your baby’s nap schedule to predict the next meltdown (been there), budgeting for a new car, or deciding what content to post on Instagram, you’re gathering, analyzing, and acting on information.

Here’s the trick: the more aware you are of what kind of data you’re using and how reliable it is, the better your choices become. It’s like turning up the brightness on your decision-making flashlight.

That’s when decision-making gets smarter, simpler, and way more human—welcome to the Data for Humans life.