How To Decide: Maximisers Vs Satisficers
When it comes to making decisions, there are two basic types of decision styles: Maximizing and Satisficing.
Maximizers are the ones who spend a lot of time and try to weigh various options while making the decisions. They just want the best of options. They see themselves as perfectionists.
Satisficers are the ones who just go for the good enough option. They don't weigh every option. They just go for whatever seems good enough.
Now, by looking at the definitions, you could have sensed that the maximizers are the ones making the best decisions. But are they the happy ones about their decisions? Let's find out.
I have a friend, let’s call him Shobhit. He always wants the best of things. Whenever has to buy something, he always spends a lot of time researching about it on the internet. He compares all the best options from all the websites and then makes the best decision. He usually spends a few days and sometimes even weeks making the final purchase. He simply likes to have the best option available in the market.
Now, there's nothing wrong with his process. We all are like Shobhit. We all want to weigh all the options and we all want to have the best of things. But, here's the catch. Whenever we spend a lot of time comparing and searching for the best option for trivial things, we are wasting a lot of time.
There's always an opportunity cost associated with how we spend our time. In the case of Shobhit, whenever we talk, he always makes the excuse that he doesn't get the time to read the books. My point is that if you'll spend so much time researching trivial purchases, don't expect that time will wait for you.
Another aspect associated is the phenomenon of decision fatigue. In simple words, decision fatigue is the tiredness you feel while making decisions and the more decision you make, the more is the decision fatigue. Now, when you are comparing all the options on the internet, you are making decisions (every comparison is a decision for the brain) and you can't make decisions after decisions without paying a price. The price in this case is mental energy.
With all this searching and comparing, you are expending your mental energy which you could have used somewhere else in a better way.
Maybe at the end of your search, you'll have the best mobile tripod, but in the process, you have wasted some hours (or in some cases, days) and a significant amount of mental energy which you could have spent on reading books, learning some skills or simply you could have spent that time with your family. This habit of going deep and researching the hell out for making every purchase decision costs a lot of time and energy and affects your productivity.
On the other hand, a person who 'satisfice' might not be having the best mobile tripod holder but it's good enough for his use. He decides to settle for the 'good enough' option because he can use the time and energy that saves by not going down the rabbit hole on some other productive pursuit.
Another key thing is that no matter how much time maximizers spend on comparing things, they cannot make the best decision because no one can ever have the complete information. They cannot search and compare all the options on the internet, it's simply not possible.
At some point in time, they'll have to pick one option. Even though the option that they chose is a good one, they often don't feel happy about it because they think that if they had some more time or some more budget, they could have got a better deal. On the other hand, satisficers are often happy about their decisions because they were not looking for the best option in the first place. So, even if they come across some better options after they have made the decision, they don’t feel any regret.
Maximizers think that since they have set high standards for themselves, they should always research thoroughly. But the point is that except for some areas of life, in all other areas, satisficing is enough.
If you want to be happy with your decisions and want to save time and energy, try to maximize for only a few things in life and for all other things, learn to satisfice. Don't worry about getting the best mobile tripod in the world, learn to live with the good enough because, in most cases, good enough is indeed ‘good enough.