Great primer here, Patrick. People tend to underestimate the degree to which high levels of stress diminish cognitive capacity. In other words: stress makes you stupid! Not only does pre-planning provide, as you say, "more time to decide," it also front-loads the cognitive demand. By making decisions in advance, you are relieving your future self of the burden of trying to figure out what to do in an emergency.
Great primer here, Patrick. People tend to underestimate the degree to which high levels of stress diminish cognitive capacity. In other words: stress makes you stupid! Not only does pre-planning provide, as you say, "more time to decide," it also front-loads the cognitive demand. By making decisions in advance, you are relieving your future self of the burden of trying to figure out what to do in an emergency.