Book Byte #63 "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz
Why More Is Less
📣 Curious Quotes from the Author
“Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, perhaps too hard.”
“Focus on what makes you happy, and do what gives meaning to your life”
“When asked about what they regret most in the last six months, people tend to identify actions that didn’t meet expectations. But when asked about what they regret most when they look back on their lives as a whole, people tend to identify failures to act.”
“The alternative to maximizing is to be a satisficer. To satisfice is to settle for something that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might be something better.”
“We are surrounded by modern, time-saving devices, but we never seem to have enough time.”
“Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues have shown that what we remember about the pleasurable quality of our past experiences is almost entirely determined by two things: how the experiences felt when they were at their peak (best or worst), and how they felt when they ended. This “peak-end” rule of Kahneman’s is what we use to summarize the experience, and then we rely on that summary later to remind ourselves of how the experience felt.”
“we have a tendency to look around at what others are doing and use them as a standard of comparison.”
“Unfortunately, the proliferation of choice in our lives robs us of the opportunity to decide for ourselves just how important any given decision is.”
“choose less and feel better.”
“The existence of multiple alternatives makes it easy for us to imagine alternatives that don’t exist—alternatives that combine the attractive features of the ones that do exist. And to the extent that we engage our imaginations in this way, we will be even less satisfied with the alternative we end up choosing. So, once again, a greater variety of choices actually makes us feel worse.”
“On the other hand, the fact that some choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better.”
“We get what we say we want, only to discover that what we want doesn’t satisfy us to the degree that we expect.”
“Most good decisions will involve these steps: Figure out your goal or goals. Evaluate the importance of each goal. Array the options. Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet your goals. Pick the winning option. Later use the consequences of your choice to modify your goals, the importance you assign them, and the way you evaluate future possibilities.”
Something as trivial as a little gift of candy to medical residents improves the speed and accuracy of their diagnoses. In general, positive emotion enables us to broaden our understanding of what confronts us.
“I think that in modern America, we have far too many options for breakfast cereal and not enough options for president.”
📚 Cognition of the Book’s Big Idea:
Everyday decisions have gotten more complex as a result of the overwhelming number of options presented by modern society. The negative impacts of choice on our psychological well-being grow in proportion to the amount of options available. The more options we have, the more difficult it is to make a sensible selection, and the less satisfied we will be with what we ultimately choose. As a result, it appears that some level of voluntary constraint would benefit both parties. We would likely be happier if we simply chose fewer options.
Review your decision-making.
Decide less and feel better: First, consider any recent decisions you've made, both large and minor. Then list the steps, time, research, and worry that went into making those decisions.
This will provide you with an overview of the expenses connected with the many types of decisions you make, as well as help you define future criteria for how many possibilities to evaluate and how much time and energy to engage in selecting. Become a satisfied person Appreciating and accepting "good enough" will make decision-making easier and boost contentment. Consider times in your life when you've settled for "good enough," and evaluate how you made those decisions.
Then, gradually incorporate this "satisficing" method into additional facets of your life.
🛠️Fixing the Tech Industry
The Tech Industry has a lot of choices, there’s a lot of competition. Go easy on yourself and know that there are major decisions and minor decisions to be made. The minor ones don’t matter in the long run. These could be what you have for breakfast, what you wear for the day or which meeting you choose to sit in on.
Take time with major decisions, life altering decisions, but don’t sweat the small stuff. They didn’t really matter anyways
🤝Collaborate with others with this Social Media Prompt:
What are some decisions you’ve been procrastinating to make but most likely don’t mean much?