Choices

I just finished reading the book "The paradox of choice". The book is about how we are faced with many decision in our everyday life and how it might change the way we look at them either for good or for worse. All of us know that when we are shopping for things we are bombarded with so many options but never think twice as to how this may be affecting us. Having many options is a good thing because it liberates and gives you control over your needs and wants. But at the same time, with more choices comes more deliberation and this can potentially make you worse off in the long run. When you become overloaded with choices you either waste a lot of time deciding when it really doesn't matter or you might not even follow through with your options. This is what author Barry Schwartz is trying to understand that if you are given too many options people tend to become less productive and satisfied when it comes to the decisions they make. Schwartz talks about how when people are faced with too many options of something, they will sometimes forgo the options all together and not do anything about it. In his book he talks about two decision making strategies called maximizer's and satisficer's. Maximizer's are people who will extensively outweigh all of their options trying to find the best possible one at the expense of a lot of time doing so. A satisficer will look and there options and chose the one that is good enough in a timely matter and don't get so caught up with the alternatives. Throughout the book, Schwartz encourages people to more of the satisficer type when it comes to decision making because it leaves you feeling less anxious and gets rid of the choices that don't really matter.