Last week, I wrote about how I’ve embraced mindful shopping. I’m teaching myself to be more deliberate about the things I own and buy. My goal is to buy less and, more importantly, to own less.
As part of this, I don’t want to waste time shopping. I’m trying to train myself to make better decisions more quickly. This is tough for me to do.
By nature, I want to evaluate every alternative, to find the best option in every circumstance. Left to my own devices, I can spend two hours trying to decide which chainsaw is the best chainsaw at the best price.
There’s nothing wrong with this, of course. Comparison shopping is a good thing. But there’s a fine line. Some comparison can help you avoid purchasing poor products. Too much, on the other hand, becomes a tax on your time and your brainwidth.
I want to find a balance. I no longer feel the need to make a perfect decision. (Is there such a thing?) I’m becoming comfortable with the idea of accepting decisions that are “good enough”.
In short, I’m trying to incorporate lessons I’ve learned from The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz so that I can take some of the suck out of shopping.
The Paradox of Choice
For those unfamiliar, Barry Schwartz is a psychology professor from Swarthmore College. His 2004 book The Paradox of Choice argues that while life without choice is almost unbearable, having too many choices carries burdens of its own.
“I believe that many modern Americans are feeling less and less satisfied even as their freedom of choice expands,” Schwartz writes. “Having too many choices produces psychological distress.”
This certainly rings true from my own experience. And not just with money decisions.
One of the joys of financial independence is the ability to choose how to spend your time. Indeed, this is a unique luxury. However, it’s also a burden. When you have an infinite number of options available, how do you make decisions about what to do with your time? (My answer, as you can probably guess, is to be clear about your purpose, and to make decisions aligned with that purpose.)
Schwartz argues that faced with so many options and decisions, we would be better off if we:
- Embraced certain voluntary constraints on our choices (instead of rebelling against limits).
- Opting for “good enough” instead of always seeking the best.
- Lowering our expectations.
- Made our decisions non-reversible.
- Paid less attention to other people.
“A majority of people want more control over the details of their lives,” he writes, “but a majority of people also want to simplify their lives.” Schwartz calls this the paradox of choice. Greater choices creates greater complexity. That’s what we think we want. In reality, most folks crave simplicity — and simplicity requires fewer choices.
So, how can we confront this paradox? Is it possible to have the best of both worlds? How do we go about wrestling with the ever-increasing array of choices while simultaneously seeking simplicity.
That’s precisely what I’ve been trying to answer for myself lately.
At the end of The Paradox of Choice, Schwartz shares eleven steps that he believes can help mitigate (or eliminate) the distress caused by so much choice. Let’s look at four that I’ve found effective in my own life.
Learn to Love Constraints
“To manage the problem of excessive choice,” Schwartz writes, “we must decide which choices in our life matter and focus our time and energy there.” Establish personal rules of thumb and follow them. Artificially limit your number of choices. You might, for instance, have a rule that you’ll only visit two stores when shopping for clothing.
Here’s a real-life example of limiting your number of choices.
For the past six months, I’ve been in the market for a new vehicle. There are hundreds to choose form, and if I were to let myself look at the entire universe of new cars, I’d never make a decision. Instead, I’ve created my own “pocket universe” of cars to choose from: compact and sub-compact vehicles that are available in electric or hybrid versions.
Another great way to exercise contraint is to ignore all of the options that are available, especially for products you purchase regularly. Do you need to examine every cheese at the grocery store? Every can of soup? Every loaf of bread? Of course not. You have favorites. You have defaults.
Whenever possible, stick with what you know — especially if what you know already makes you happy.
Satisfice More and Maximize Less
According to Schwartz, maximizers are those who only accept the best. Every time they make a choice, they want to make the best choice possible. And even after they do make a choice, they worry there might have been a better option.
Satisficers, on the other hand, have learned that contrary to conventional wisdom, good enough often is. They’re willing to settle for something other than the best. A satisficer still has expectations and standards, but once he’s found something that meets those standards, the search is over.
My cousin Duane is a maximizer. He agonizes over buying decisions — even ordering food in a restaurant.
Duane knows it doesn’t make much sense to deliberate over a menu decision, but he can’t help it. He can’t stop himself. “What if I choose something wrong?” he says, mocking himself. “That’s why I like buffets.” With a buffet, he has an “out” if he doesn’t like what he chooses. He can go choose something else.
I used to be like this too. Now, though, I take a different approach when dining out. I skim the menu until I find something I like, then I look no further. That first item I find is what I order. What’s the point of trying to pick the perfect meal? Will it make me any happier? Probably not. I’m satisfied choosing the first thing that looks good.
I took this approach when buying my chainsaw last week. It worked great! I’ve invested in the EGO Power+ series of battery-powered tools. I checked to see if they produce an electric chainsaw. They do, and it’s highly rated. I ordered it without looking at any other options.
Regret Less
After you’ve made a choice, move on. Don’t linger over other possibilities. Don’t second-guess yourself. If you buy stock in Dell instead of Apple, don’t continue to track Apple’s price. Stick with what you have.
More to the point, don’t compare your choices with other possibilities. “Our evaluation of our choices is profoundly affected by what we compare them with,” Schwartz writes, “including comparisons with alternatives that exist only in our imaginations.”
He argues that we can vastly improve our subjective experience by striving to be grateful for what’s good about our choices rather than being disappointed by what’s bad about them.
It’s also important to remember that most choices are complex. There’s rarely an option that’s clearly superior to all others in every single way. Each choice has its advantages and its disadvantages.
When faced with especially tough decisions, consider using the Jeff Bezos “regret minimization framework“.
Manage Expectations
How we feel about our decisions is strongly influenced by our expectations of the results. You might, for example, build up in your mind that a long-awaited Hawaiian vacation is going to be amazing — then it’s not. It’s fine, but it’s not nearly what you’d hoped.
The problem here isn’t Hawaii or the ocean or the hotel. The problem is the expectations you created for the experience. High expectations are the enemy of happiness.
Similarly, it’s important to remember hedonic adaptation will occur. Even if your new Tesla is thrilling during the first week of ownership, that thrill won’t last. You’ll gradually become accustomed to your new normal. Before long, that Tesla will seem mundane.
Schwartz argues that one of the best ways to control expectations and to anticipate hedonic adaptation is to be a satisficer rather than a maximizer. Don’t look for (or expect to find) the “perfect thing”. It doesn’t exist. If your aim is only satisfaction, your decisions are less likely to fall short of expectations.
Another way to manage expectations is to stop comparing yourself to others. Doing so is nearly always destructive to your sense of well-being. Don’t do it. Stop trying to keep up with the Joneses. “Focus on what makes you happy,” Schwartz writes, “and what gives meaning to your life.”
Thinking in Bets
Last year, I read and reviewed Thinking in Bets, Annie Duke’s book about making smarter decisions when you don’t have all the facts. (Here’s my review.) Duke says that we should stop thinking in terms of right and wrong. Few things are ever 0% or 100% likely to occur. Few people are ever 0% or 100% right about what they know or believe. Instead, we should think in bets.
According to Duke, all decisions are bets on the future. An unwanted result doesn’t mean we made a poor choice. It just means the bet didn’t pay off this one time. If you get a head injury in a motorcycle crash, that doesn’t mean wearing a helmet was a bad decision. It was a good decision, but this one result was poor.
“Job and relocation decisions are bets,” she writes. “Sales negotiations and contracts are bets. Buying a house is a bet. Ordering the chicken instead of the steak is a bet. Everything is a bet.”
In the year since I read her book, I’ve thought of this concept often. Another way for me to make better (and quicker) decisions is to embrace the idea that I’m betting on outcomes. When I buy something, I’m betting whether or not I’ll like it because it meets my needs.
Taken together, all of these ideas — those from Duke and those from Schwartz — are helping me spend less time deliberating over decisions and more time enjoying life.
Excellent post! I ran an engineering department for the first part of my career and trained and mentored a dozen or so smart young chemical engineers. It fascinated me that there was a huge difference in how equally intelligent engineers made decisions. Some would agonize over every conceivable option and never get finished while others would just “ready, fire, aim!” The great ones would look for the point of diminishing returns where any additional effort at optimizing the design was not going to materially improve the performance. They would find good enough, and then spend the rest of the time double and triple checking good enough so that it was bulletproof. They created safe and economical designs that were under budget and on schedule and they advanced in their careers. The others, that could never make a decision, their careers never went very far. I found it was fairly easy to teach the “quick draw” types to be more moderate about decisions but it was nearly impossible to teach the “analysis paralysis” types to be decisive enough to gain mastery of their craft. This gave me some insight I wish I had way back then, maybe I’d have salvaged a few more careers?
That’s a good one! I so agree with too many choice lead to sort of paralysis, I really liked it (to a certain extent) back home where the choices are close to null. OK, may be that’s too few:) But I buy groceries in 15 min flat (as a maximum time spent at supermarket) because I buy same things, around the perimeter. And so on.
As far as managing expectations – that’s my downfall, for sure. I do expect extra nice time from vacation – and in my mind not in terms of stuff or even experiences, but definitely in communication with my spouse. I expect perfect no-argument flow no matter how many days we are away from home (never more than 5 anyway). Life doesn’t happen like that, not to mention it puts burden on him for my “happiness”. I expect extra lovey-do on holidays and weekends. Or when we go out together (it happens so seldom, I almost demand it to be perfect, and somehow it never is). Definitely something for me to work on.
And I surely want to read “Thinking in bets” now, thanks for the pointer.
“Having too many choices produces psychological distress.”
Amen. I get psychological distress just looking at the barb-q sauce options in the grocery store. I don’t need 637 flavors to choose from. Now I sound like a grumpy old man….
I’ve personally restricted myself to a “minimalist aesthetic,” which really cuts down on deliberation. For example, if I need a new pair of glasses, I simply type “minimalist glasses” into Google Images, then pick something from that category. I do the same thing with chairs, sofas, raincoats, backpacks, coffee cups, whatever. Even when I was putting together a grocery list, I would study the diets of people like Gandhi and Ramana Maharshi.
I’m pretty good at making decisions and moving on. Life is too busy to have regrets about the alternatives. There are a lot of other new decisions to make. Schwartz’s guideline looks good. I think we all build certain defaults into our decisions over the years. It’s easy to make a decision when you’re older due to experience.
Joe, VERY good point about being older adds to your experience for making decisions. So true.
I’m notorious for pondering a menu in a restaurant until the last second. I eat out so rarely, I want my meal to be awesome. But there may be 40 awesome choices for all I know, so really, why do I agonize so much over this one little choice? I’m going to remember this post.
I have a relative who is this way about almost every aspect of her life, and it’s sheer misery for all of us, including her. She can take five hours to pack a suitcase for a weekend stay with family, and still end up second guessing herself later. She’s constantly arriving late due to indecision, gets tension headaches from decision making, takes two hours to decide to buy a piece of clothing, then returns it the next day because of regret, and lives in a cluttered house because, oh dear, which things should she get rid of, which should she keep…. The irony of it is, one of her side hustles has been organizing homes for other people. She’s a whiz at telling others how to decide, but decision-making for herself is arduous. She needs this post.
Man, this was a good one. I’ll be re-reading this article this evening, when I can watch the videos (away from the office). I’m interested in the “thinking in bets” portion. I feel like I can debate myself endlessly. There’s been many times that I’m driving down the road, arguing with myself about something trivial in the big scheme.
Fantastic stuff! Thanks for sharing this.
After reviewing the videos, I came away with a little more trepidation. While I understand the paradox of choice, I’d really hate to see this applied on a large-scale. Sure, your local diner might want to pare down their menu items, but I can see how the idea of “too many choices will just confuse people” could easily be abused at a larger level. It is indeed a paradox!
Interesting stuff and definitely something to potentially integrate at the micro level.
This makes me think of thewirecutter.com. it’s like Consumer Reports, but they simply tell you the best one, with the most features, or the best price, is THIS one. It’s come to the point for me, if their top pick for any given things that I need, is less than $50, I don’t even think about it, I just buy it
Thank you so much for the great blog, it has been awesome having you back. I think you might have misspelled Satisfy and Maximize in the header “Satisfice More and Mazimize Less”
Ugh! So embarrassing. To this day, I can’t understand how it’s possible to read and re-read something dozens of time and still have typos slip through. In this case, the “satisfice” was intended but the “mazimize” was not haha.
Hey! Brilliant article, my kind of read, chockfull of ideas in action. This is where I see the huge comparative advantage of your confessional style: you don’t just discuss abstractions (that’s what I do): you share how they work for you (or don’t).
I recently read a heavily abridged version of “Thinking in Bets” and I liked it. Your review helps to tilt me in favor of reading the whole enchilada this summer vacation.
As for satisficers: allow me to double down on my months-old recommendation of a pressure-cooked pulled pork (which got bit sidetrcked at the time). Oh hell yeah, with the right seasoning it satisfies about 90% of tht agret sammich without the need to sweat over a smoker plus the whole expense of time and gear (otherwise, a slow oven works too, but takes you half day).
See for example (search results)
https://www.pressurecookingtoday.com/easy-pressure-cooker-pulled-pork
http://www.pressurecookerdiaries.com/pressure-cooker-recipes/dinner/how-to-make-pulled-pork-bbq-pulled-pork-recipe-in-a-pressure-cooker/
https://www.pressurecookrecipes.com/instant-pot-pulled-pork/
I won’t swear by those recipes cuz I’ve never tried them—I have my own alchemy, those are just from an internet search.
But on quick inspection: I like smoked paprika in my spice mix: someone else spends the centuries growing and smoking the thing, and you just add it to your food for pennies per serving. I don’t buy bottled sauces (but they might work for you…)
Oh, I love to trade…
Ah, I also prefer picnic roast to butt: takes a little longer, but dat collagen… plus umami from the bone… but try it with whatever shoulder cut you got.
Ok! I’m hungry now…
Heretic. Smoker, now and always.
Smoked, sure, when I pay someone else to sweat all day over that mess I expect *the best.* Worth the purchase.
But if I’m the one doing it, and it’s not my actual job, nor a cherished hobby… I’m just dispatching it as quickly as I can satisfice that need. That’s 90 minutes *tops.*
And yes, Heretic is my proud middle name 😉
Yes. This. Why I love Aldi (0-2 options for most groceries I need); prices are always competitive, so I can grab and go without agonizing over a dollar here or there.
I do similar “paring down” of the category for buying big things, like houses and cars and guitars: what are the required specifications, and what important features will help me decide?
And I’ve found that used usually fits the “good enough” category if I can verify the provenance and utility of the item before I buy it (or have a pretty good guarantee of delivery of a quality item).
I started to post the very same thing about Aldi’s! Seldom any decision to make about what item you buy. You either buy their brand of cottage cheese or you don’t. Quality, for the most part, is as good as the more expensive grocery stores.
An eye-opener as well as mind boggling
It’s vital to learn to make better decisions and understand the factors influencing our decisions.
Hands down!
I believe maximizers crave for excellence which makes them stand out from the crowd. A highly admired quality but has its own pitfalls…
Just happened on this post on a crazy (snark) Saturday night two years after you wrote it. I identify with a lot you have here and just wanted to thank you for the vulnerability in writing it.
Numbness, challenges with making even the simplest decision, and insomnia are things I have been struggling with for some time now – this despite apparent success at work and other outward facing societal norms. In some ways, the pursuit of FI is to get out of the rat race, and in others it’s because I want to make fewer decisions a day…so, maybe not the best plan?
Anyway, I’ve on and off had these feelings that go away at times but seem to linger more nowadays, so it’s really helpful to hear them called out so clearly here, so I can try to put myself on a better path as well.
Thanks again, and I hope you feel better these days.
Mark