Think of the last time you picked where to eat on a trip. A good call meant a little research, a couple of options compared, some sense of the place you were in. And then the part people forget: actually choosing. Sit there too long and the afternoon is gone. The decision you don't make costs you the thing you can't get back.
Design is mostly that, over and over.
When you don't decide, someone else does. Sometimes that's fine. You can't own every call, and a sensible default beats a stalled team. But your job, the reason you're in the room, is to own the decisions that matter, so the people around you don't have to keep solving them. Decide it once, well, and you free a dozen other people to spend their heads elsewhere.
I love best practices. lBest practices are where you start, not where you finish. Search "[thing] best practice" and you'll get a decent answer in a second, which is exactly why it isn't yours yet. Every default came from someone who once stood where you're standing, with no reference and a decision to make. That's you now. Borrow what helps, then make the call your context actually needs.
And hold it loosely.
The honest take on any good decision is "this is how we go, given what we know today." When what you know changes, the call changes. That isn't mindless flip-flopping, it's paying attention.
Don't burn energy pre-solving problems you don't have yet. Most of them never show up.
Stuck between two options is the best moment to pull someone else in. Two brains beat a stuck one, and you might find the piece you were missing.
Get good at this and you get more valuable, plainly. A good call tends to mean a bigger result for less effort. Most of strategy, underneath the word, is just that: deciding well, early, and staying willing to be wrong.
