Choice Overload

When it comes to designing systems and habits to be successful, most people think you need to think outside the box. Remove all limitations and then brainstorm ideas until you find the most innovated one.

This approach is common but flawed. Thinking outside the box sounds great until we realize we could do anything. Being able to do anything is too complex, too broad, and too overwhelming.

Instead, we must narrow down our choices. There is a concept called choice overload that applies when trying to motivate the behavior of groups.

The concept helps to see what complexity does to decision-making. There was a study done that evaluated jam in a grocery store. They wanted to know if more choices increased the overall sales of the product category.

They put out 24 different types of jam. Customers would stop, look at the options, and most would move on without purchasing any jam that day. In fact, only 3% would make the purchase.

Then they limited it to 6 different types of jam. Customers would still stop and evaluate. But instead of a 3% purchase rate it jumped to 30%. There was literally a 10% increase in the amount of jam purchased at that grocery store from a reduction of options.

When we have too many options, we face analysis paralysis. It becomes harder to find one that works for us because there are so many ways we could go.

When it comes to the systems and habits approach to improvement, don’t get too caught up in trying to think outside the box. Try to keep within smaller parameters.

Brainstorming is great but when there are no limitations it becomes too daunting. Limitation in this case will help creativity. You will work to solve realistic problems with realistic factors at play.

There is a great book called Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity for Breakthrough Results by Drew Boyd and Jacob Goldenberg. It explains how we can limit our options to be more creative.

This is the opposite approach to thinking outside the box. Instead of limitless options, the authors argue that it is best to have a framework to work within.

In many cases, doing something is better than doing nothing. Analysis paralysis can trick us into doing nothing because we want it to be the perfect step.

But perfection is usually a myth, and we need to be able to try new tactics to find innovative ones that work. With limited options we can find some to try and learn from them, advancing our approach at each pass.

So, if you find yourself not going after your goals and dreams because you don’t know where to start, limit the options and decide. Choice overload is real and can sabotage the most well-meaning attempt at improvement.

The benefit to the systems and habits approach to improvement is that we don’t bet everything on one change or one approach. We find many small tweaks that we can test out to see if they help or not.

This allows us to remain inside the box in our thinking and push past the notion that we can do anything. It forces us to do something instead. But by doing something we learn and grow and find better options that we didn’t even know existed when we were stuck in analysis paralysis mode.