Day 17:
The Paradox of Choice is the idea that too many choices can be debilitating or often lead to indecision. Do you know how to combat indecision? Have a kid ( or two or three or enter any other extremely chaotic and demanding thing needing your attention here) and give up the luxury of time to fret over decisions. Today I was faced with selecting a pair of glasses. The engineer in me wanted to do a ton of research, figure out the best frames for my shape of face, try them all on, compare prices online, and make a spreadsheet to compare all the options. The reality of the situation is that my clock was ticking since I fed the baby more than 3 hours before and had about 15 minutes to make a choice and get out of there or I was going potentially soak my shirt. With my liquid gold on the line, I tried on as many frames as I could, decided to not worry about the cost, and made a quick decision. I probably would not have been too hasty, except the reality of the situation is that I only use these glasses for night time wear and no one ever sees them, so the risk of buyers remorse was low.
I can draw a parallel to this in the workplace- when I have the luxury of time I will use it and often overanalyze and have trouble making a quick decision. Don’t get me started with how I plan my travel to make sure it is “optimized” for cost, time, and my preferred airlines. However, when I am crunched for time or have too many important decisions to make it’s fairly simple for me to prioritize which decisions are important versus those of lesser importance and spend time accordingly. Barry Schwartz, author of the ‘Paradox of Choice’ stipulates that people need to become more comfortable with the concept of “good enough” and I completely agree. When faced with tough decisions, I often ask myself what level of effort will be good enough to give me an outcome that I can be satisfied with. Today, it was 15 minutes for a pair of glasses I wear for less than 4 hours a week and I’m satisfied with my decision.
Positive Thought of the Day: Today we celebrated National Night Out with our neighbors, we had a fantastic turnout. We are so lucky that the kids (and the Husband and I) have neighbors that they can call friends. Added bonus, just found out about Wine Down night and will be joining in this month and meeting some new neighbor friends!