This seems heavily related to the main point of the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" . There are two major types of thinking-instantaneous, "go with your gut" judgments, and conscious processing. Spending even a minute on a decision forces you to use some conscious processing in addition to the go-with-your-gut decision.
This is especially useful when you're solving new problems or working on things you're not particularly good at. My personal example is estimating distance. When somebody asked, my "gut feeling" about the distance from Boston to Delaware was 600 miles. 30 seconds of conscious thinking and I realized it could be no more than 400 miles (the correct answer is about 350).
The other useful aspect of switching to conscious thinking is that it at least makes you aware of the rationale for your decision. When making a conscious estimate I break it down into smaller parts, and if the estimate is way off it's usually because one of the parts was off. But for me, that doesn't work with instant guesses.
This is especially useful when you're solving new problems or working on things you're not particularly good at. My personal example is estimating distance. When somebody asked, my "gut feeling" about the distance from Boston to Delaware was 600 miles. 30 seconds of conscious thinking and I realized it could be no more than 400 miles (the correct answer is about 350).
The other useful aspect of switching to conscious thinking is that it at least makes you aware of the rationale for your decision. When making a conscious estimate I break it down into smaller parts, and if the estimate is way off it's usually because one of the parts was off. But for me, that doesn't work with instant guesses.