Why Less Choices are More than More Choices
I f*cking use Dudu Osun and do not care about the 132+ variants of soap Unilever has
Last Friday, my visit to the mart was futile. It was one of those visits I used to make whenever I run out of stock of basic household items. A new mall just opened close to my house and I decided to try it out for my bathing soap replacement. On getting to the mall, I met a close friend of mine who lives not very far way. A conversation ensued and he convinced me to try out a soap other than the one I originally intended to purchase — Dudu Osun.
From Unilever stand alone, we saw over 8 products ranging from Nivea to Dove. Staring closely at this section, we found:
- 12 different variants of Nivea, each available in different sizes
- 6 different variants of Lux, each available in different colours
- 5 different variants of Dove, each available for different skin types: oily to normal to hard
And then there are body washes — over 14 variants for each of the above.
All these are from Unilever only. If counted properly, we would have over 1000 unique variants of bathing soaps, and if these 1000+ options aren’t enough, there are soap mixers who can specifically help you create a custom-made one tailored for your skin.
Is Less Truly More
While writing this article, I came across the news of an Indian bathing soap that failed because it was OK. The bathing soap experience is now the very essence of choice without boundaries. By 2050, when these brands continue to push out more variants, it’s a good bet that when next we have an alumni reunion, we would need a big box to gather soaps as no two of us will use the same bathing soaps.
The fact that less choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better. Have you ever felt less and less satisfied even as your freedom of choice expands? There is a cost to having a choice overload.
British and American psychologists William Edmund Hick and Ray Hyman, describes the time it takes for a person to make a decision as a result of the possible choices he or she has: increasing the number of choices will increase the decision time logarithmically. The Hick–Hyman law assesses cognitive information capacity in choice reaction experiments.
If you only had to walk 5km to a restaurant before you find out they are closed for the day, you would feel worse compared to if you had to walk 1km. Choices are made through a combination of time and effort, and with this analogy, more choices will always mean more time and effort to settle for the final one.
So What Should You Do?
Relatively good > Absolute best
There is no absolute best anywhere. Compare the current girl/guy you are with to the girls/guys you have been with in the past. If we are to go by objective indices, it’s rarely the case that one stands out in all chosen metrics. For years, I was the best student in my secondary school but I was never the absolute best in all subjects. With choices, there is a lot of sanity preservation and expectation management that settling for a relatively good option will bring in lieu of an infinite search for the absolute best among a myriad of alternatives.
Plural source of truth: Don’t Google Jack!!!
According to Information Week, a single source of truth can be defined as “one source [of data] that everyone in a company agrees is the real, trusted number for some operating data”.
Do a quick Google search on what [item] to buy/use for this [cause] and watch how millions of results show up on Google’s homepage like bees swarming a tree. The lack of a final authority on what is actually the best [item] for [cause] creates extra layers of confusion as the internet is largely democratic to a fault — anybody can opine, everybody can opine irrespective of a verifiable superior knowledge.
The crux of the lack of a consensus is more problem creation — in my quest to search for the best school to do my Masters lies the need to solve the problem of choosing from over 100 MSc ranking websites all claiming to have the most superior information. Pity me now! Because embedded in the search for a Masters program still lies the search for what course study is best for me 🤔.
Embrace choice rejections 💃
Acceptance of alternatives is herculean. Far more herculean that it makes you feel worse than you would generally have been if the choices were more limited. Take a look at this small formula I generated:
Having to judge the rationality of your final decisions as great, declines with an increase in total number of choices. Why? The fraction will always get smaller as the denominator (total number of choices) becomes bigger.
On a different note, more choices usually add extra layer of indices to be considered as basis for comparison. If all you had to do was to choose between a N1million/month job vs a N800,000/month, it will take take lesser time, and you have a higher chance of feeling generally strong of your final decision than if you have 5 other options of
- N700k with a car + free rent
- N600k with 5% monthly company profit sharing
- N500k + travel abroad 4 times a year
- N400k + possibility to earn N1.2m as the firm is 80% completion of it’s acquisition by Google
- N300k + extra N150k being paid for life after you spend a minimum of a year
In the example above, your indices of comparison have accumulated, resulting in momentary states of “what if’s” since you are constantly aware of all the other options you are potentially forfeiting. The problem with what ifs is simply this: they are unbounded and can be generated infinitely. I can say “what if people don’t get paid salaries?” and it will still hold.
To handle this, pick a very limited basis for comparison. For instance, you would never have included N150k paid for life if the option 5 never came. So, do not fall into the trap of increasing the indices for comparison as a way of selecting the absolute best (which doesn’t exist as I pointed earlier).
Conclusion
There is a reason why the proponents of marriage strongly rely on the “till death do us part” mantra. Whenever you truly want to make a limited choice and do more with less, you must be ready to dispose any iota of distractions in favour of what you’ve finally chosen, as you cannot achieve those decades of investment without constantly rejecting the alternatives.
In order to value something, you must reject what that thing is not. To value X, you must reject non-X. Your commitment to X hones your attention and focus, directing them toward what is most efficient at making you happy — (X), while removing any possible fear of missing out (on non-X).
Here is why I use Dudu Osun, and and do not care about the 132+ variants of soap Unilever has. Fortunately, the relationship doesn’t seem like one that is ending soon.
