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People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes

robkhenderson.substack.com

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Re: People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes

#101

Post by dazc »

bitwize wrote: post #51
bluedino wrote: post #17

You think guys like Bill Gates think about what they are having for dinner? They don't debate it with their wives. Food just appears. The cook knows what they like and they probably stick to that. I would consider myself "filthy rich" when food just appeared for me.

Other elites use a trick I call Smurfette's closet: fill your closet with identical copies of a single outfit (much like Smurfette has a closet full of that one dress she wears). That way you won't be paralyzed by picking out what to wear. Barack Obama and Steve Jobs have done this.

It also make laundry more efficient since you can get away with just throwing everything in together.

Re: People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes

#102

Post by nazka »

Waterluvian wrote: post #16

My “anti shampoo aisle” strategy (that drives my wife mad) is to stop at the first item that satisfies my requirements. “You didn’t even look at the back of the menu!!” “Good point. I’ll start reading menus from random locations each time.”

I have another trick. If you don’t know what you want or you want a good and fast answer. Ask someone that have a good knowledge to pick for you.

For instance ask the waiter if he tried the items on the menu and pick the one he likes the best. (And if he didn’t tried most of them because he is new which one is the most popular). If it’s tech go to your best guy about the topic and ask him what you should pick.

It works well if you are good at choosing the right person. And for most not that important things since the person already have more information than you it will be better than flipping a coin.

Re: People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes

#103

Post by fleddr »

julienb_sea wrote: post #14

The irrationality presumes: 1. That the decision-making activity itself is wasteful. 2. That the decision-making time would, if not consumed by decision making, be spent elsewhere in a more productive manner. These are hardly safe assumptions. The discussion itself can be enjoyable. The faster decision making can create less certainty in the decision and encourage regret, or create conflict with others. The time gain…

Your point is literally made in the article:

"Sometimes the decision-making process itself is pleasurable. Even if all outcomes will be equally rewarding, spending time discussing options with others or privately mulling them over might be satisfying."

Re: People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes

#104

Post by raverbashing »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #63
ZacharyPitts wrote: post #18

Which is why I enjoy buying things at Costco. They usually have one widget of a particular type. And historically for me at least, they seem to be proficient at choosing good widgets. Thus, my only choice is whether I want it or not, not then another choice of which one do I want.

That is also the reason I dislike languages like Perl and Groovy. They have too many ways of doing the same thing. Web-design is another good example. There are typically so many ways of accomplishing something, that I actually don't spend much time thinking about it. But then later I found I could have done simpler and better with another approach.

In terms of language design, absolutely.

Giving "free" choices to users just makes it more confusing. It's better to have one way of doing things than three that are kinda like the same but don't offer many advantages.

Optional for optional's sake doesn't help.

Re: People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes

#105

Post by pydry »

nly wrote: post #93
chii wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this article claims we tend to continue putting in the effort well past that point. it's because people have the irrational belief that their thinking and reasoning more about a problem/decision makes their outcome better. I think the common symptom found in software is design analysis paralysis. A software team end up using tonnes of time fretting about design choices (often as a committee), rather than just use t…

It can be worth agonizing over the decisions early on while the system is simple and easy to change. Later on it's often not logistically, politically or socially justifiable to go back and fix or improve an original bad design decision and re-base and retest everything built on it. The result is engineers sat around muttering "I told you so" to themselves and wasting weeks debugging and hacking around bugs.

I find that the agonizing rarely bears as much fruit as doing.

In some cases we've deployed, found horrible problems that were completely unexpected and switched course.

Additional time spent agonizing would just have delayed getting us to the point where we learned those things. The critical information we needed to make that decision wasnt going to reveal itself with additional introspection.

This isnt to day when a dev waves a big red flag in the beginning you should ignore them, though (ever). But, I find that waving that red flag doesnt ever inhibit delivery speed whereas multiple people agonizing over decisions where the information to determine the "right" one usually does.

Re: People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes

#106

Post by fleddr »

Waterluvian wrote: post #16

My “anti shampoo aisle” strategy (that drives my wife mad) is to stop at the first item that satisfies my requirements. “You didn’t even look at the back of the menu!!” “Good point. I’ll start reading menus from random locations each time.”

Same here.

We once had to shop for new curtains to decorate the new home we bought together. We walked into this giant store with 500 options and I directly walk to a rack and point at my preferred choice. She's puzzled and navigates the store for a full hour only to come back and confirm it to be the most favorable choice, much to her disgust.

At restaurants, I decide in less than a minute, which puts this hilarious time pressure on the other to make a choice. It completely ruins the "fun" ritual of pondering over choices and debating pros and cons with each other.

It's not that I'm some expert fast decision maker, it's pure and raw indifference.

Re: People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes

#107

Post by fleddr »

wrs wrote: post #5

Note sure what the fix to this “inefficiency” would be. Spend more time making obvious decisions? Use snap judgements on all nonobvious decisions? Or should the headline be “People Correctly Avoid Spending Too Much Time On Obvious Decisions”?

"Use snap judgements on all nonobvious decisions?"

That's the premise of the article, yes.

Re: People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes

#108

Post by coldtea »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #58
quest88 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it should be intuitive. My test is "Will I accept either outcome if I flip a coin?". Is so, flip the coin. If not, pick the option that prevents me from flipping a coin.

The issue is it is hard to know whether the two (or more) choices are equally good. If you have no way of knowing which choice is better then you would flip the coin of course. The problem is there typically is a way to possibly learn more about which is better, AND HOW MUCH, by studying the choices. The "How much" -part is crucial. One choice might lead to core meltdown. Often such study does not provide any further…

>The issue is it is hard to know whether the two (or more) choices are equally good.

If the choice doesn't matter much, then both options are equally good.

E.g. "should I get this pair of shoes or that? I like both".

Just get one and get on with it.

"Should I go to Paris or Vienna for a short trip?"

Just pick one and get on with it.

Still people obsess for these kind of choices for needlessly long...

The case discussed, were people waste time they shouldn't, is (a) when the choice doesn't matter much or (b) when you do know that either option would be more or less fine (which is basically a variant of (a)).

If (c) you can't tell if they're equally good AND chosing the right one does have a BIG impact, then this case doesn't fall under the advice of TFA or what we discuss here.

Rather, it's an "ipportant choice" and people should think it over...

Re: People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes

#109

Post by fleddr »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #41

> people spent longer choosing between options that were roughly equal in value than between options in which there was a large value disparity. This seems rational and predictable. It would be wild if people spent more time evaluating decisions between vastly different values. “People spend too much time” on choice paralysis because they’re overwhelmed by too many hard to distinguish things.

No, it's irrational when taking into account the examples given where from the start it's obvious that the choices are "equal enough".

The point is not that it's hard work to distinguish between similar option, the point is that people do it even if its clear it has no benefit from the very start. That's irrational. People even take it so far as to miss out on money straight in front of them, see dot counting experiment.

Re: People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes

#110

Post by sawyna »

For me, it's more about whether I have missed something in evaluating the options. Sure Barcelona vs Rome is more or less equal, but I don't have the complete information about both of them. I might say it's easier to choose after I visited both, but definitely not before.

It's also about what parts of both the cities I'd enjoy. Overall, they might be the same. But if I like some specific aspect let's say history, Rome is better. If I like diverse cuisines for instance, them Barcelona is better.

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