No°08 • Sep 5, 2025
How knowing a destination can free you.
Every day we are bombarded with infinite choices.
What to eat.
What to wear.
What to do that day.
Society tells us that we should aim to have as many options as possible. It may sound counter-intuitive, but more choices doesn't mean more joy.
It seems like if you had more choices, you could find an option that was closer to the most optimal choice. In reality, the more choices you have, the less satisfied you are with any one option.
But we've been conditioned to believe the opposite.
The Paradox of Choice is Killing Your Progress
While technically if you had more options, you could get one closer to the most optimal choice, you will never be 100% certain. There are so many slight differences. Therefore, if there are only 2 options, it's easier to find which one is more optimal. You will know it was the best choice.
This will bring you joy.
On the flip-side, if you have 100 choices, it will be harder to decide which one is the best. Once you chose, you will be less sure you chose the right option.
Not only will you have less joy, you will waste more time trying to decide with option to choose.
This is the root of analysis paralysis. Too many options to decide quickly with conviction.
Think about all that time wasted because you didn't know what to choose.
All because you had too many options.
Your Limits Are Your Competitive Advantage
As you narrow down your choices, you will actually be more happy with what you chose, because you will be sure you chose right.
We can use this to our advantage.
You can constrain anything, but I'm going to use daily activities as an example.
You place every activity you could do into one of three categories.
Must Do: Non-negotiable activities that align with your core identity
Could Do: Tempting distractions that seem valuable but dilute focus
Won't Do: Clear boundaries that protect your time and energy
Obviously you don't need to go overboard with this.
Once you have this list, throw out every action that isn't in the Must Do category.
At this point, you'll have cut out 70% of all the actions you could do.
When you choose, you'll be much happier with your choice because you only had 30% of your original actions to do.
The next level of this is to decide beforehand what you are going to do at each hour. Write down a list. You should be able to look at this list every minute of every day and know what you should be doing.
That way you put the deciding first and the action second. The action isn't going to be choked out by needing to choose what to do.
The Art of Intentional Constraint
To have any effect, intentional constraint needs to be practiced every day, in everything.
Just one area of your life with many options can cause a waterfall effect into every area in your life.
It's about minimizing your choices so you can make better decisions when they matter.
This is why some people wear the same shirt every day. They don't need to spend time figuring out what to wear. They just pick up a shirt, because that's all they have.
Constraint leads to frictionless action. You don't need to spend 10 minutes deciding how to do your hair. Just do it.
The less friction you have in your day, the more time you'll have to spend on things that matter.
The more time you spend on things that matter, the happier you'll be and the more energy you'll have.
Instead of chasing freedom of choice, we should be reaching for freedom to pick what not to choose.
Focused freedom in specific areas.
See you in the next one.
-Luke
