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—JULY 11,2007
The Choice-Minimal Lifestyle: 6 Formulas for More Output and
Less Overwhelm
I was stressed out... over dog cartoons.
It was 9:47 P.M. at Barnes and Noble on a recent Saturday night, and I had 13 minutes to find a
suitable exchange for The New Yorker Dog Cartoons, $22 of expensive paper. Bestsellers? Staff
recommends? New arrivals or classics? I'd already been there 30 minutes.
Beginning to feel overwhelmed with a ridiculous errand I’d expected to take five minutes, I stumbled
across the psychology section. One tome jumped out at me as all too appropriate—The Paradox of
Choice: Why More Is Less. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen or read Barry Schwartz’s 2004 classic, but it
seemed like a good time to revisit the principles, among them, that:
e+ The more options you consider, the more buyer’s regret you'll
have.
e » The more options you encounter, the less fulfilling your ultimate
outcome will be.
This raises a difficult question: Is it better to have the best outcome but be less satisfied, or have an
acceptable outcome and be satisfied?
For example, would you rather deliberate for months and get the 1 of 20 houses that’s the best
investment but second-guess yourself until you sell it five years later, or would you rather get a house
that is 80% of the investment potential of the former (still to be sold at a profit) but never second-guess
it?
Tough call.
Schwartz also recommends making nonreturnable purchases. I decided to keep the stupid pooch
cartoons. Why? Because it’s not just about being satisfied, it’s about being practical.
Income is renewable, but some other resources—like attention—are not. [I’ve talked before about
attention as a currency and how it determines the value of time.
For example: Is your weekend really free if you find a crisis in the inbox Saturday morning that you
can’t address until Monday morning?
Even if the inbox scan lasts 30 seconds, the preoccupation and forward projection for the subsequent
48 hours effectively deletes that experience from your life. You had time but you didn’t have attention,
so the time had no practical value.
The choice-minimal lifestyle becomes an attractive tool when we consider two truths.
1. Considering options costs attention that then can’t be spent on action or present-state
awareness.
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