Choice stress? Or: A guide to making choices
Posted on August 8, 2017 • 3 min read • 591 words
It seems paradoxical. You have more to choose from, but you are less happy with what you have chosen. Nowadays we have much more choice, more than before. Yet we are not necessarily happier with all those choices. I too wasn’t very happy with all those choices when I picked out [my headphones]/sennheiser-momentum-m2-iei/. Even though I knew what I wanted, I wondered if I was making the right choice. It seems the more choices we have, the more unhappy we are. Is there nothing that can be done about this stress of choice?
During a TED session, Barray Schwartz explained why more choice does not mean more happiness.
Barry Schwartz has also published a book about this: [The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less]( https://partner.bol.com/click/click?p=2&t=url&s=49599&f=TXL&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bol.com%2Fn l%2Ff%2Fthe-paradox-of-choice%2F30078408%2F&name=The%20Paradox%20of%20Choice%2C%20Barry%20Schwartz)
With all these options you can’t choose, can you? Fortunately, there are some tricks to help you. The method below helps me to get out of the choice confusion.
Determine your requirements and wishes
This seems like a dead end, but I think this is the most important step. Before you even enter the store or open your internet browser, it is wise to determine what the minimum selection should have, i.e. your need-to-haves. It is also useful to describe your list of nice-to-haves. And it is useful to determine the maximum amount you would like to spend. Not that this necessarily makes the choice easier, but then you do have a budget to focus on.
Preselection
In order to make your final choice, it is important to narrow down your options as quickly as possible. You do this by going through all your options. Do you like/good an item or option? Then put it aside or write it down. Continue until you have chosen only those things from all the options that you really find better/nicer/more convenient and that fit the conditions you previously set.
Congratulations! You have already done the first step of choosing: You have crossed out all irrelevant or desirable choices. During the next choices you will NOT look at these options again. No way. These options are no longer available.
Choose from two
Now the choosing really begins. The trick is to always reduce your choices to two. So even though you have a list of ten things to choose from, you keep narrowing it down to two, asking the question, “Is this choice better than the last?”
Based on this answer, you keep the item or cross it off your list. As a result, one item is lost with each choice. Of course you may have doubts. No worries. Then you save it for a while and test it against another choice later.
So in the end you always only choose between two things. This also applies to the final choice, when all other items have been crossed out. “Do I think this one is better or more beautiful than the other one?” Once you have an answer to this, you have made the final choice.
Choose anyway
You will be tempted to return to comparison with the one you have already rejected. Try to do this as little as possible. You rejected your choice, right? It may of course be that, now that you have made your choice in such a targeted manner, you find another item more attractive or useful than your current choice. You can then choose the other item, but keep in mind that you have come to this point because you always thought this choice was the best choice.
