Throughout our daily lives as working professionals, we encounter situations that require decision-making skills. Some are quite simple, such as whether to buy spinach or romaine at the grocery store or how to organize your day planner before a busy week. However, there are many more situations that call for a deeper and more active consideration of factors, information, people, and results. When it comes to these important decisions, it’s a wise idea to utilize both critical and analytical thinking. We know from previous blogs that we define analytical thinking as a process of breaking down all pertinent information into smaller chunks and using logic and linear thinking to make a choice. Critical thinking, on the other hand, goes further by including consideration of more abstract ideas like bias, opinion, and outside information to draw a more informed conclusion.
Both approaches can be effective, and sometimes even play off of one another. So, how can you decide whether starting with analytical or critical thinking will work best for a particular decision? Below are a few scenarios that demonstrate how either mindset can assist in your day-to-day life, using our very own Alpha Kappa Psi as a foundation for these theoretical situations.
