For many people, the question of “what’s your favorite -?” is one that is dreaded as much as that one cousin coming to dinner. Your friend could be asking for your favorite candy bar, someone new could be asking for a color, a family member may be asking for a meal, anything. But when there’s so many options to pick from, what are some ways you can figure it out ahead of time?

1.) One way to do it is by a tournament-style elimination game. Gather up as many options as you can in the category (for this example, we’ll use colors) and assign them random positions in a tournament bracket. Then, in order of the rounds, decide a favorite between the two options, then move on. You should give it just enough thought that you don’t second guess yourself, typically by way of your gut. If the first options are red or orange and you do everything in orange, it’d be pretty easy to pick. Once you finish, you can repeat this a couple times, until you’re satisfied with the results. Ideally, you should have the same result every time.

2.) Another way to solve the issue is to present yourself the first couple of ideas that come to your mind when the subject is brought up, then really scrutinize each option. If you’re asked about your favorite animals and your first several thoughts are of bees, cats, or horses, you can choose several categories to compare them to one another, such as cuteness, environments, sentimental value, interest, etc. For many people, though, this method is much harder, as you may neglect another potential favorite in the process of rushing to a few ideas.

3.) When all else fails, you can always decide it at random. This is pretty obviously the most chaotic way of doing it, as you could end up deciding your personality to the person asking the question for the next several years at the least at the drop of a hat. However, this could be a fun, almost exciting way of finding new favorites. On the same coin, you could end up hating it and regretting your decision entirely. This should be a last-minute tool only, if one you use at all, unless you really just want to go with the flow.

All in all, deciding favorites can be hard, but with a proper structure to your thinking (or lack thereof), the choices can become much easier. Besides, the answers can change at any time, so why stress for so long over impermanent choices?