How to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions in Business
Most small business owners believe they need to get every decision right. The best software. The best supplier. The best marketing strategy.
But here’s the trap: chasing the “best” often drains your time, energy, and momentum.
The good news? You don’t need the perfect answer. You need a good-enough one that keeps you moving. That’s the essence of a powerful mental model for entrepreneurs: satisficing vs. maximizing. For those 80% of times when perfect is the enemy of good (enough).
The Psychology of Decision Fatigue
Picture this. You spend three weeks comparing email marketing tools. You devour reviews, build spreadsheets, binge YouTube tutorials. Finally, you pick one… and barely use it.
That’s maximizing: the drive to find the single, absolute best choice. Maximizers believe there must be a “right” answer, so they keep hunting, even when it costs them more than it pays back.
Satisficers, on the other hand, define their criteria, choose a solution that meets it, and stop searching. They optimize for movement, not perfection. It’s the difference between spending 20 minutes picking a shirt versus scanning your closet, grabbing the first one that works, and getting on with your day.
As a founder, you make dozens if not hundreds of decisions a week. Maximize all of them, and you’ll burn out. The key skill is knowing which decisions deserve that level of scrutiny and which don’t.
Maximizing Hurts Small Business Owners
Maximizing feels responsible, but it comes with hidden costs:
- Time cost: Hours lost comparing instead of building.
- Opportunity cost: Every delayed decision slows results.
- Mental cost: Fatigue builds until you avoid decisions altogether.
- Execution risk: By the time you choose, the window may have closed—or your team has moved on.
In business, there usually isn’t a single “best” answer. There are multiple good options, and most of them can work—if you commit.
The 80/20 Rule of Decision-Making
So when should you maximize? A simple rule of thumb: maximize the 20% of decisions that drive 80% of your outcomes. Satisfice the rest. Here’s how that might look in practice. Satisfice on:- Software tools
- Invoice templates
- Business cards, logos, branding frills
- Scheduling systems
- Early admin hires
- Pricing model or business model
- Market positioning
- Choice of business partner
- Legal structure
- Key sales hires
Case Study: The CRM That Never Got Used
A new client of mine had just spent months agonizing over which CRM to buy. She compared HubSpot, Zoho, and half a dozen others. Built spreadsheets. Ran demos. Consulted mentors.
Eventually, she chose what looked best on paper.
But the team hated it. They never adopted it. Six months later, they scrapped it for something simpler they actually used.
Had she defined success as “a tool my team will use within the first week” and made a faster call, she would’ve saved months of wasted time and frustration.
When Maximizing Makes Sense
Satisficing isn’t sloppiness. Some decisions deserve maximizing effort.
Maximize when:
- The decision is irreversible
- It has serious legal or compliance implications
- It’s strategically central to your value proposition or customer experience
These are your “80/20” decisions. They’re the ones where the cost of being wrong is truly high. Luckily, most decisions don’t fall into this category.
The Takeaway
You’re not building a perfect business—you’re building a working one.
Progress, not perfection, is what scales. The entrepreneurs who win aren’t the ones who maximize every choice. They’re the ones who keep choosing, quickly and consistently.
Satisficing isn’t settling. It’s strategy.
Good enough might just be great.
If you liked this, you might like this related post about the 8 Million dollar problem.
