Curating a life with less choice

Join me, fellow members of Team Overwhelmed

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I am tough as nails in many aspects of life. I have come out the other side of adversity on repeat, without bitterness and with a forward-facing lens. When faced with complex and/or urgent work situations, I mean it when I cheerfully tell my clients, “Nothing is impossible—let’s do this!” I have a level of put-your-head-down-and-power-through that is the only explanation for how someone like me—who struggles with auditory information retention and reading dense material and thus needs to exert a multiplicative amount of effort to compensate—could tolerate studying full-time for eight weeks to prepare for a four-hour comprehensive exam on human perception and cognition (yes, the whole system including all of the freaking senses) and pass the exam on my way to completing a Ph.D. in brain, behavior, and cognitive science in four years.

But hand me a menu that is more than a couple of pages, or stand me in a giant grocery store with 30 types of detergent, and I pretty much want to stab a fork in my eye.

And the stakes feel so much higher—and the decision fatigue greater—when I’m looking for something that impacts the wellness of one of my kids, as I was doing at Rite Aid this past weekend. I was determined not to let the aisle of allergy medicines get the best of me, and yet there was just so much to process and compare: active ingredients, length of promised relief, size of pills, number of pills per box, price per unit cost comparison, original vs. drugstore dupes, formulas with additional benefits (yes please to the nasal decongestant add-on). I got in a lot of steps and squats as I kept going back and forth along the aisle, up and down amidst the shelves, trying to hold multiple variables in my head.

Hand me the freaking fork already.

This experience got me thinking about whether it is possible to curate one’s world with less choice in this very commercial world in which we live. The initial prospect seemed grim, but I realized that I have found some ways to curate a life with less choice, and I thought it would be useful to share them for fellow members of Team Overwhelmed.

Grocery shopping

Going to a giant grocery store is the most time efficient option in theory, but giant grocery stores are my worst nightmare. And they aren’t even that time efficient for me since I end up tracking back and forth across aisles looking for what I need. Over the years I have reframed my thinking about availability. I mean, would I love it if Trader Joe’s carried parchment paper? Yes, but TJs is great at so many other things that I value, and I love that the store is small and that for any given item, you have a couple of options to choose from, not 30. So, I have embraced a multiple-stops specialty approach, which includes Trader Joe’s as my primary store, Whole Foods for specific items like their 365 oat milk, and Asian markets when I need Asian groceries.

Eating out

I don’t have data on this but it seems like a reasonable hypothesis that eating at establishments with small menus likely goes hand in hand with supporting a small independent eatery vs. a mega chain with a menu so massive it needs a table of contents. I have the great privilege of living in a city with many independent eateries, so unless I am traveling in a less populated area with fewer options and I am starving, I am always going to roll small when it comes to eating out.

Retail

I no longer can handle places like department stores or giant retail stores of any kind. Kind of like eating out, if possible I’ll shop small (local is an added bonus), and I adore stores that offer curated picks to further direct my attention—like when you go to a bookstore and the shelves are peppered with hand-written staff pick cards.

Recipes

Back in the fall I did a huge lightning declutter, including my cookbooks and I’m thinking about decluttering my remaining cookbooks again because really, my holy grail is my recipe binder. I’m at a point where I might just go through my remaining cookbooks and photocopy my favorites to insert into my binder and donate the books. Also, after making what I think is the best chocolate cake ever for Violet’s birthday, I’m planning on getting further micro in my binder. In cases like the chocolate cake, where I identify a spectacular recipe, I will get rid of the other less spectacular options, making it easier for me to find what I need.

Online shopping at big places

I still rely on modern conveniences like Amazon and Chewy online and as long as the items I usually purchase are doing their job and are reasonably priced, instead of combing endlessly through options—which is how I used to roll because I was very bound up in needing to see all of the options to find the “best” one—I am all about just shopping from my order history to make my life easier and less overwhelming.

This approach isn’t about me limiting my view of the world. It’s about leaning into a less overwhelmed life through choice curation, which allows me the space to be curious and explore in other areas that delight me. Does this resonate? Where else do you look for curation?

My kids do not need more Squishmallows but I do think this might be one of the very few examples where lots of options means lots of cuteness. I took this photo on my way to the check out after surviving the allergy medication aisle.