The Double Best Method: Become a decision-making genius and say goodbye forever to bad choices and regrets

by Sophie Hannah

We create our decisions in our minds…

The decisions we make create our lives…

Learn how to make the very best decisions using the unique ‘Double Best’ Method.

*****


Most people have no idea how to choose well. Their approach to decisions is based on foundations that are incorrect, which makes wise choice-making impossible.

The great news is, you don’t need to be one of those people ever again, once you’ve discovered the unique Double Best Method and learned how to make every choice in the best way.

*****


In 2012, Sophie Hannah made what she thought was a reckless decision to do something that was bound not to work. It was 99% likely to end in complete failure. She thought that her reasons for making this choice were ‘ridiculous and bonkers’. She didn’t dare tell anyone her ‘why’, so sure was she that what she was doing was naive and irrational.

And yet…she very much wanted to make this particular choice that she thought no one would approve of. Why, if it was so foolish and reckless? She told herself, ‘I just want to, probably because I’m a bit weird, and it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but me.’

That ‘bonkers’ decision turned out to be life-changing for Sophie, in the most incredible way. By July 2021, the thing that was 99.9% bound not to work had ended up working brilliantly — beyond anyone’s wildest dreams…

Find out what that decision was and how it led to the invention of Sophie’s unique Double Best Method.

Genres: Nonfiction

174 pages, Paperback

Published May 17, 2023

About the author

Sophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling writer of psychological crime fiction, published in 27 countries. In 2013, her latest novel, The Carrier, won the Crime Thriller of the Year Award at the Specsavers National Book Awards. Two of Sophie’s crime novels, The Point of Rescue and The Other Half Lives, have been adapted for television and appeared on ITV1 under the series title Case Sensitive in 2011 and 2012. In 2004, Sophie won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her suspense story The Octopus Nest, which is now published in her first collection of short stories, The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets.

Sophie has also published five collections of poetry. Her fifth, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 T S Eliot Award. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001 she was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She is forty-one and lives with her husband and children in Cambridge, where she is a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. She is currently working on a new challenge for the little grey cells of Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous detective.

Reviews

[India · Rating 5 out of 5]

News of this book appeared, miraculously, in my inbox (via Sophie Hannah’s newsletter) right at a time when I was trying to make one of the hardest decisions of my life – a decision so momentous that most people would be horrified to hear I made it using a self-help book.
But that’s what I did, and now, a month on, I feel completely at peace with my decision for the very reason Hannah describes: I’ll never know how the alternative would have played out, but I know I made my choice based on what was true for ME.
So thank you, Sophie – as if your fiction hadn’t already brought me enough joy, you’ve now changed my life for the better via your non-fiction.

[Well of Lost Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warm, empathetic, and quietly empowering, this is a great read for anyone prone to decision paralysis or post-decision regret.

This was an entertaining, reassuring, and surprisingly practical read about how Sophie Hannah developed her “Double Best” method of decision-making and how to actually use it in real life. The concept is simple but effective: make the best decision you can with the information you have, then commit to making the best of it afterwards. No crystal balls, no psychic certainty required.

What really elevates this book is how deeply it understands the human tendency to second-guess. Hannah doesn’t just hand over a method and send you on your way; she explores why we agonise, replay decisions, and torture ourselves with imagined alternate futures. Her examples are relatable, often funny, and deeply normalising — a gentle reminder that nobody knows how things will turn out, and that making the “wrong” choice doesn’t mean you failed, only that you’re human. Besides, there's no guarantee that if you had made another choice, you would be happier or it would have been the right decision for you.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

A non-fiction book, Double Best Method (2023) by Sophie Hannah is a self-help decision-making methodology. Using her own experience, Sophie explains how to make the best decision by choosing the ideal outcome, as long as its worst outcome possible is also tolerable. So, it's choosing a good while accepting the bad result is manageable, if it’s the result of the choice made. It’s a best versus worst outcome scenario, that Sophie extols for excellence in decision-making. There will be readers who find this 123-page self-help book a useful guide for a structured approach to decision-making. However, such quick-fix advice often lacks nuance and foibles intrinsic to our nature. A star rating is ultimately beholden on the reader and how they find using such a decision-making process. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own, freely given and without any inducement.

[Sophie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this so much. The only reason I finished it is so I can give it the one star review it deserves. Read if you want out of touch, sometimes irresponsible “advice” from a privileged, rich woman who seemingly has never had any real struggles. I learned nothing while listening to someone completely unlikeable and unqualified waffle about how she knows everything.

[Sharon Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Decision making made simple!

At last a simple and brilliant strategy to clear away over complicated thinking around those sticky decisions. I’ve tried it already, and it worked. Now I’m looking forward to my next decision. It’s liberating!

[Mbgale · Rating 5 out of 5]

A useful book to read and highly recommended. Once I understood the author's method, I found it simple to use. And I actually felt better about some of the decisions I'd made in the past. Just because you get an outcome you don't like doesn't mean it was a bad decision.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Double Best Method is fascinating for someone like me, who used to tend to fret about making the right decisions.

It is an easy-to-follow audiobook. It is also full of examples of the method in action.

Brilliant.

[Xrysa Ser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good perspective on decision making, a little repetitive I'd say, hence the 4 stars, but it is an approach I haven't read before with many examples and explanations to help you understand it ans adopt it

[Elizabeth Haines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Get this book. Get it now and unleash your unrealized power of making genius decisions.

[Jane Ayres · Rating 5 out of 5]

Practical and helpful and fun to read. I wish I had Sophie's inspirational confidence!

[Johanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book that can help you make decisions which feel good even if you don't get the results you want.

[Grant Finnegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book, by a great Author. Huge fan of Sophie's work and her attitude on life.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I adore Sophie Hannah, but this was giving not-relatable-very-rich vibes.

[Tracey Ryan young · Rating 3 out of 5]

A positive book, with an improvement on pros and cons lists.

[Glenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a quirky self-help book by a master of crime fiction. I might as well give it a try. Her decision making process does seem to incorporate rational considerations along with self confidence considerations.