Satisficing
When Near Enough Is Good Enough
Job Done!
Satisficing - Overview
Satisficing is a heuristic - a practical shortcut - for making decisions that aims for a satisfactory or adequate result, rather than the optimal solution.
It is:
- A decision-making process that strives for adequate rather than perfect results.
- A pragmatic approach that saves on time, resources and costs by narrowing the range of options considered to achieve an adequate outcome.
- Not engaging in intensive, complex, and exhaustive efforts to attain the optimised solution.
- Adopting a more minimalist approach that looks for the first solution that meets basic acceptable outcomes.
The opposite decision-making process to satisficing is optimisation [or maximisation] where you collate and analyse all the necessary data that is required to make the optimal choice.
According to traditional economy theory, this is the choice that gives the highest level of satisfaction [maximum utility].
I am British, and I recall when I first visited the US approximately 35 years ago. I was in a mall at lunchtime looking to buy a coffee and a sandwich for my lunch, and I was completely overwhelmed with the range of choices.
As I recall, the food vendor offered me about 30 different types of bread and filling for my sandwich and a similar number of choices for the coffee! I felt like screaming: "just give me a black coffee and cheese sandwich on brown bread"!
Origin of the word Satisficing
The term satisficing was introduced by Herbert A. Simon (1916-2001), an American economist, political scientist, sociologist and computer scientist.
He first coined the word in his 1956 paper, “Rational Choice and the Structure of the Environment”, he wrote:
“It appears probable that, however adaptive the behavioral of organisms in learning and choice situations, this adaptiveness falls short of the ideal of ‘maximizing’ postulated in economic theory. Evidently, organisms adapt well enough to ‘satisfice’; they do not, in general, ‘optimize’.”
Satisficing and Task Optimisation
- This is about knowing the point at which continued focused activity on a task takes you beyond the point which meets your predetermined requirements.
- This is about knowing the point at which an essential task becomes inessential.
An example of task optimisation
In Speed and Velocity I gave the example of the creation of this article and its posting on this webpage.
I am currently working to a schedule of creating and posting one webpage per day.
In order to achieve this successfully I need to accomplish a series of tasks in a specific sequence and within a defined time window.
So, this morning I knew that my subject for today was "speed and velocity". To achieve my objective for today there are 3 main tasks.
1] Reading and research of subject material for this article and considering my own real life experiences in this area.
2] Drafting and formatting the material.
3] Posting this material as a webpage.
I have found from considerable experience of this process that I need about two to three hours for steps 2 and 3, but unless I am careful step 1 can take far longer than it should. This morning I found myself getting drawn deeper and deeper into the physics of this subject, which as a non-academic I found interesting and challenging.
After a while I realised that I was wasting time and continued research was beyond the scope of this article. So, in practical terms, I had reached the optimum allocation of resource and effort that was required to complete step 1.
I was able to do this because I have extensive experience of this process and I have an established set of criteria that enables me to make this call.
How to satisfice a decision
- Establish your requirements — work out upfront what you’ll need to be satisfied.
- Allocate the resources - decide just how much time, energy and resource you’ll need to put in.
- Search for an option - that meets those requirements within the allocated resources.
- Stop when you find a satisfactory option — satisficed!
You
need to be very clear about the optimum allocation of resource to a task that is required to meet your predetermined requirements. You also need to establish clear metrics that enable you to know when you have reached that optimum point.
Return from "Satisficing" to: Mental Models
LATEST ARTICLES
Like A Prayer - Life Is A Mystery
It Isn't The Process Of Prayer That’s The Problem, It’s The Way It’s Framed. Regardless of what we feel about Madonna or her song the topic of prayer often arouses strong reactions. Usually, it is som…How Things Really Are - The Inbuilt Design Flaws
Chaos, Disorder And Decay Is The Natural Order Of Things. Nobody has the perfect life. We all struggle and strive to attain health, wealth and personal happiness. Yet these three big areas: our health…Intuition Or Anxiety - Are There Angels Or Devils Crawling Here?
How To Tell The Difference Between Intuition and Anxiety. How do you know whether the voice of your intuition is real or just the product of your inner anxiety? Several months ago I was having a drink…What Is Truth - How To Tell A Partial Truth From The Whole Truth?
How the truth and nothing but the truth is often not the whole truth. My great aunty Flo broke her arm and died. It is true that she broke her arm in 1923. It is also true that she died in 1949. But t…Duality And Life Beyond Your Thinking Mind
Duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuses on the limitations of time, foreground and background, duality and "stuckness". The first aspect of duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuse…The Conscious Mind Is Limited - Be Aware And Be Prepared
Being aware is the first stage of being prepared. The conscious mind is limited in so many ways. There are some who would argue that there is no such thing as conscious thought and that it is represen…Your Inner Map Of Reality - Here's Why You Think The Way You Do
The big picture of how your inner map of reality creates your feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. Your inner map of reality is based on the filters of your own ethnic, national, social, family and rel…The Failure Of Cancel Culture - Suppression Not Engagement
Why we need to wear our beliefs lightly and develop negative capability. Throughout history people have campaigned to fight beliefs, ideologies, and injustices that they perceived to be oppressive, di…4 Big Reasons Why We Get Stuck In Our Attempts At Personal Change
Most People Spend Their Entire Life Imprisoned Within The Confines Of Their Own Thoughts. This first of the 4 big reasons why we get stuck is, in my view, the most important. The "self-help industry…How Do I Change And Why Is It So Hard?
We Would Rather Die Than Change, And We Usually Do In my experience, the vast majority of people who say they want to change don’t change. Most people reading this won’t change because they don’t real…The Illusion Of A Separate Self - Windows 11 With Self Awareness!
Beyond the content of your mind you are so much more than you think you are. When we talk of "myself" this is the conventional way of referring to our self image which is in fact the ego's constructio…Finite And Infinite Games - Dazed, Confused & Ultimately Transcendent
This is not an instruction manual, it is a wake up call!
Over this past week I have read Professor James Carse's highly regarded "Finite And Infinite Games - A Vision Of Life As Play And Possibility"…The Gap And The Gain - How Your Brain Sabotages Your Happiness
How Your Lizard Brain Sabotages Your Happiness We are hardwired to measure our progress in any and all areas of life where we have goals and aspirations. We can't not do it. But what we measure and ho…How To Wake Up - 4 Simple Practices To Help You Wake Up Now
So What Exactly Does It Mean to Wake Up - What Is "Enlightenment"? There is nothing magical, mystical or mysterious about waking up we’re actually having glimpses of enlightenment all the time. Enligh…Situational Communication - Different Strokes For Different Folks
Situational communication is about taking account of 3 often ignored factors about the other person. You are a situational communicator when you recognise that effective communication is not an event…How To Influence Without Authority - 6 Key Tips
The secret to how to influence without authority is that you get what you really want by giving other people what they really want. We live in an interconnected world and knowing how to influence with…Change Questions To Change Your Outcomes
Asking The Right Questions Is Critical For A Successful Change. Every time we initiate a significant change - whether in our personal life or in an organisation - we will most likely over-estimate our…Group Culture - The Invisible Software That Rules Your Life
Group culture is: "How we do things round here". We like to see ourselves as free agents making our own choices and living authentically but the reality is that The Matrix has many layers and we are u…Why Getting From A to B Is Not Aways A Straight Line
In circumstances of significant change, the progress from A to B will not be in a straight line. We run our lives largely on auto-pilot. In most circumstances your experience of getting from A to B is…The Art Of Persuasion Planning For Success - Here's How To Do It!
To be successful in the art of persuasion you must ensure that certain things happen. To be successful in the art of persuasion you must establish a framework of what has to happen to get you to that…The Art Of Persuasion Advanced Communication Skills - Gaining Buyin
Create The Environment Where They Want To Buyin to Your Proposal In order to build the win-win you have to uncover what it is that the other person really wants or needs, and to do that you have to as…The Art Of Persuasion The One Fundamental Principle - Create A Win-Win
The art of persuasion is based on the simple idea that you get what you want by enabling the other party to get what they want. Being a nice friendly person with good inter-personal skills may be a go…Communication Persuasion And Change - Key Skills To Survive & Succeed
It's not the strongest that survive, nor the most intelligent, but those who are most responsive to change, the most persuasive, and the best communicators. We are living in an age of unprecedented ch…The Eisenhower Box - What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent
What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent And What Is Urgent Is Seldom Important. The Eisenhower Box is a time management and decision-making model devised by President Dwight Eisenhower to help him prioriti…Zen Enlightenment [Satori] - The Stink Of Zen
Lost In Our Delusions About Enlightenment. There is something in human nature - a desire to glamorise, sanctify, objectify and idolise – that elevates people who have offered deep insights to the huma…5 Zen Mindsets For Mastery - In Any Area Of Your Life
The Wisdom Of A Person Who Masters In Any Art Is Reflected In Their Every Attitude. The state and quality of your mind has a very large bearing on the quality of your performance in any area of life t…Dealing With The Toxicity Of Online Dating - 6 Key Tips From A Clinical Psychologist
Toxicity Is The Price Tag Of Accessibility. In the early days of online dating, users were vetted and had to go through a registration process and agree to comply with a code of conduct designed to en…Why Understanding Ergodicity Is Critical To Your Long Term Survival
How Not To Be Fooled By Randomness. Ergodicity is an ugly word from the world of mathematics. It is an umbrella term for two sets of conditions of probability and outcome. These two conditions form th…Dealing With Imposter Syndrome - Ego Is The Enemy
How You Frame A Situation Has A Profound Impact On How You Respond To It Emotionally. Imposter syndrome is a psycho-emotional experience of a fear of being found out as incompetent despite ongoing evi…The Challenges Of The Road Less Traveled
Issues You'll Face When Playing The Long Game. The challenges of the road less traveled is loosely based around the phrase popularised by M.Scott Peck with his book "The Road Less Traveled". This arti…