Satisfice: set a good-enough threshold and stop searching when you hit it

Optimize for "good enough" rather than "best possible" — the search cost often exceeds the gain.

Why it works

Herbert Simon’s "satisficing" — a portmanteau of satisfying and sufficing — captures the insight that seeking the optimal solution requires knowing what optimal looks like in advance, which is often unavailable. Setting a threshold ("I need X in a job offer") and stopping when you find an option that meets it avoids the diminishing returns and opportunity costs of indefinite search, while still clearing a meaningful quality bar.

How to do it

1. Before any significant search (job, home, decision), define the minimum criteria that constitutes good enough.
2. Search until the first option that meets all criteria — then stop and decide.
3. Resist the temptation to keep searching "just in case" something better exists; this is the satisficing trap.

Evidence

Simon’s satisficing concept is foundational to bounded rationality research. Schwartz et al. found that maximizers (people who seek optimal choices) reported lower life satisfaction and higher regret than satisficers, even when their choices were objectively equal. (observational)

Schwartz’s maximizer/satisficer distinction is correlational self-report; adopting satisficing as a strategy and seeing wellbeing improvements is inferred, not directly caused in RCTs.

Sources

• Schwartz et al. (2002), Maximizing versus satisficing, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Common mistake

Setting the threshold too high ("perfect, not merely good enough") — this converts satisficing into maximizing with extra steps and defeats the purpose.