Satisficing My Way Through Bead Shop Syndrome

One fine spring day during my freshman year of college, my friend Kathy and I took the bus into San Francisco which, for two young women from small towns in Idaho, was an astonishing treasure trove of possibilities. We were on the hunt for jewelry making supplies and we soon found ourselves in a large shop containing row upon row of floor to ceiling drawers full of beads, baubles, and fittings – a crafter’s paradise that was simultaneously a dream come true and completely overwhelming.

An as yet untitled piece that I am calling done.

I immediately plunged in and started collecting everything that caught my eye without much of a plan except the intention of seeing it all before I made any final decisions. Kathy, on the other hand, sat herself down in a corner with a glazed look in her eyes.

I would later learn – after a class in the psychology of decision making – that our reactions were classic responses to an overabundance of choice. It turns out that although people might want as many options as possible when making decisions, too much choice can be a bad thing. Some people end up getting lost in endless exploration and analysis. Others might feel so mentally overwhelmed that they check out of the process altogether. Either way, it can mean that we never reach a decision or, even when we do make a decision, that we are left feeling unsatisfied.

Psychologists call this phenomenon the “the paradox of choice.” But my college gang and I will forever refer to it as “bead shop syndrome.”

Satisficing – an antidote to bead shop syndrome

How can we avoid bead shop syndrome? One way is by practicing satisficing – a term coined by the economist Herbert Simon to describe a decision-making strategy that focuses on the “good enough” rather than the elusive “best.”

Satisficing acknowledges that we are creatures with limited brains in a world of infinite possibilities and that we might not have the time and mental bandwidth to explore all options before making a choice. It also recognizes the reality that good enough is often fine.

Sounds great, right? But how does one actually satisfice?

Economists would tell you that it’s a matter of identifying a set of criteria for what would be good enough, searching through available alternatives until those criteria are met, and then stopping the search. This is exactly the strategy I used recently – very successfully – when shopping on Amazon for a ring light to use during Zoom calls.  

But in many situations, “good enough” criteria cannot be so easily quantified. When is a painting good enough? When is a blog post good enough? For these decisions, it is more useful to think of satisficing in terms of a mindset rather than a specific set of criteria.

A satisficing mindset is an acceptance that imperfect decisions are inevitable. That our mental resources are limited and our drive for perfection may actually end up exhausting and derailing us. That while some things are indeed worth doing to the best of our ability, not everything worth doing is worth doing well. That a decision today might be more valuable than a “better” decision next week.

Adopting a satisficing mindset helped my husband make the decision to start piano lessons even though he wasn’t sure he had the time to do them justice. He had planned to ask his potential teacher how much time and effort would be needed to get the most out of lessons. I gently suggested he instead ask what would be needed to get something out of lessons. Because while that something might not be optimal, it would certainly be better than nothing.

Pruning the thicket of choice

Back in the bead shop, Kathy and I stumbled onto a way to satisfice by limiting our options. She stayed in her corner and I scurried back and forth with small selections of beads. Her choices were constrained by my curation. My choices were constrained by what fit in my palm and by her directives like “now find something blue to go with this.”

Freeing ourselves from the burden of an exhaustive search meant that we were able to translate what could have been an overwhelming and ultimately fruitless expedition into several pairs of earrings with which we were fully satisfied.

This kind of deliberate limitation can feel counterintuitive when every instinct says “more is better” and “keep your options open.” But constraints can loosen the paralysis of overwhelm. In my studio, a restricted color palette doesn't limit exploration, it frees me to deepen it. For these blog posts, a hard stop on research time doesn't mean shallower thinking, it means actually finishing.

Limitations aren't a compromise. They are a powerful tool for helping us satisfice our way out of bead shop syndrome. And, as it turns out, they often result in us being happier with the decisions that we end up making.

No one said it would be easy

Appreciating the value of satisficing doesn’t necessarily make it easy to do. I find this especially true in creative work where my inclination is to keep working toward “better” even when I can’t fully articulate what that is. I have tipped more than one painting from good enough to overworked by refusing to stop. I have pushed more than one blog post from good enough to unwieldly by continuing to pack in more ideas and information.

Part of what makes satisficing hard is the fear of missing out — on better information, a better idea, a better version. This, for me, is a constant struggle. But I find that one antidote is to focus not on what I am giving up with satisficing, but on what I am gaining – time, momentum, and the mental energy to do something else.

Another obstacle is that "good enough" can be a moving target. Some paintings I was satisfied with a decade ago now make me wince. That’s not a sign of failure but a reminder that satisficing means working with the best judgment that you have now even when you suspect that your future self will see things differently.

In the end, it’s about deciding where to allocate your finite time and energy and recognizing that sometimes the best thing – indeed sometimes the only thing – you can do is to choose what’s good enough.

Is this post perfect? No. Could it be better? Almost certainly.

I choose to call it good enough.