When to Choose Is to Lose

Choice can be great if we refuse to obsess about all the alternatives. The problem is finding a way to handle the psychological mechanism—the urge to maximize—that worked well throughout the millennia when choices were scarce. We can outsmart ourselves by taking a risky action: limiting our own options and then refusing to make a federal case about the final outcome. In spite of our evolved emotional makeup, options can be our allies. Case in point: Not agonizing about a choice is a choice in itself. --Nando Pelusi

How to Make Options Your Allies

You can outfox your evolved emotional makeup.

• God is not in the details: Practice making decisions quickly about small things and routine purchases. Limit the time you spend comparing specs. Build confidence in your "gut" by attending to it.
• Don't dwell: Refuse to spend too much time regretting a decision or blaming yourself for a poor outcome. Instead learn from your mistakes and determine to do better.
• Keep your expectations realistic: Needing it all is guaranteed to make you unhappy.
• Risk a wrong decision: Fight emotional paralysis by seeing that even making the "wrong" choice is often better than making no choice at all; you still learn through trial and error. It is better to blunder your way through life than to avoid making decisions.
• Don't look back: Engineer your decisions so that they are binding and irreversible: Force yourself to buy final sale items or draw up a contract with family or friends stating that you will not reverse course on a larger decision.