Why can't I make a decision even with a pros and cons list?
Because a pros-and-cons list answers a question you may not be asking. A list is the right tool when a choice turns on facts you can gather and weigh. When it keeps failing — the columns come out even, the deciding factor will not fit — that is the tell that your decision does not turn on facts at all. It turns on a value you have not yet ranked, or a fear you have not yet named. No amount of listing can weigh items whose weight you have not decided. The list is not broken; it is answering the wrong question.
Why do the pros and cons always seem to balance out?
Because a list treats every entry as if it counts the same, and yours do not. Five small conveniences will "outweigh" the one thing that actually matters to you, if you only count them. The columns come out even not because the choice is genuinely balanced but because you have not said which single item you would keep if you could keep only one. The balance is the sign that ranking, not counting, is the work — and ranking means naming what you care about most, which is exactly what the list lets you avoid.
How do I make a decision when logic doesn't give a clear answer?
Stop asking logic to supply what only a value can. Logic can tell you how to reach an end; it cannot tell you which end to want — that is yours to set. When analysis stalls, the missing piece is almost never another fact; it is a priority you have not committed to, or a fear of what the honest choice will cost. Ask instead: if both options were guaranteed to work out, which would I choose? The answer usually arrives at once — which shows the problem was never the reasoning, but the fear the reasoning stood in for.
Is overthinking a decision actually making it worse?
Often, yes. Studies of "thinking too much" found that people asked to analyse their reasons made choices that matched expert judgment less well than people who did not — because listing reasons pulls attention toward whatever is easy to put into words, not toward what actually matters to you. More analysis does not converge on the truth of what you want; past a point it distorts it. The remedy is not another pass through the list but a different question: what do I most value here, and what am I afraid to lose?
Why do I keep researching instead of just deciding?
Because more information feels like progress while sparing you the real move. As long as there is one more thing to learn, you never have to face the part that has no further fact to find — the ranking of what matters, and the risk that you might be wrong. Research is genuinely useful right up until it becomes a way of not deciding, and the two feel identical from inside. The test: ask whether the next fact would actually change your choice. If you cannot say how, you are no longer deciding — you are hiding in the gathering.