Avoid the paralysis of long negotiations!
Don’t let any kind of negotiation last too long. On Monday you tell the party you’re negotiating with that you’ll make up your mind and converge on the decision by the end of the week. Not surprisingly you fire an email declaring the conditions you’ll be happy with on Sunday. Unless you make special efforts, the entire week leading to that Sunday would be spent in unproductive two-player non-cooperative game simulations in your head. Then the next two days are spent weighted down by the background process responsible for waiting for an email and wondering what the reply would be. You get the reply on Monday evening next week, think about its contents and a day later send off the updated list of your terms. A couple of days later you get the reply promising a phone call at some point that or next week. Just think about it: two weeks and counting are wasted on the low-intensity process which doesn’t let you focus on anything else.
Don’t be trapped by the decision-delay in the important dialogues you hold. The dialogues related to your employment or several-years long commitments requiring the change of your town/country of residence are examples of this. Be done with those dialogues as soon as possible. Otherwise, you risk being paralyzed in over-analysis, idleness and constant unease. All the loops you haven’t closed will chase you. So close the loops. ASAP. And move on with your life.
