I am at times a perfectionist – on things that at care about. I’ve been told that this behavior is driven by a need for control, fear of failure, or a desire to avoid judgment in those specific, meaningful areas.
How perfectionism makes for poor decision making, a summary by Google Gemini…
Perfectionism leads to poor decision-making by replacing objective goals with a fear-based obsession over details. When you focus exclusively on “technical specs,” you are often using them as a shield against potential blame or failure, which ironically blinds you to the broader purpose of the decision.
This “tunnel vision” happens through several psychological mechanisms:
1. Attentional Bias and “Vigilance”
Perfectionists exhibit a specific attentional bias where they are hyper-aware of flaws or “imperfect stimuli”.
- The Trap: You may find yourself fixated on a single sub-optimal spec (like a minor latency issue in a software or a specific material in a product) and treat it as a deal-breaker, even if the overall package is superior.
- The Result: This hyper-focus consumes your “cognitive bandwidth,” leaving you with no mental energy to evaluate the strategic fit or long-term value of the choice.
2. Maximizing vs. Satisficing
Psychologists often categorize decision-makers as either “Maximizers” or “Satisficers”.
- Maximizers (Perfectionists): Seek the “absolute best” by exhaustively comparing every possible variable. They often suffer from analysis paralysis and feel more regret after a choice because they wonder if a better spec existed elsewhere.
- Satisficers: Set a high “good enough” threshold and stop searching once it is met. They are generally happier and make faster, more practical decisions because they prioritize the outcome over the search.
3. Dichotomous (All-or-Nothing) Thinking
Perfectionists often view decisions through a binary lens: it is either perfect or it is a failure.
- The Trap: If a high-complexity task or product doesn’t meet 100% of your technical criteria, you might abandon it entirely for an inferior option that happens to meet one specific “perfect” metric.
- The Result: You end up making objectively worse decisions because you cannot tolerate the “gray area” of trade-offs.
4. Loss of Perspective (The “Whole Picture”)
By focusing on the “weeds” of technical specifics, you lose sight of the “clouds” (the philosophical or high-level framework).
- Micro vs. Macro: You might spend weeks choosing the “perfect” camera based on sensor specs but miss the deadline for the event you needed to photograph.
- Emotional Regulation: Often, this tunnel vision is a form of avoidance. It is easier to obsess over data points you can control than to face the vulnerability of making a choice that might not work out.
Summary of Impact on Decisions:
- Analysis Paralysis: Missing time-sensitive opportunities while searching for more data.
- Decision Fatigue: Exhausting your brain on trivial details before reaching the important ones.
- Post-Decision Regret: Focusing on the 1% of specs you “lost” rather than the 99% you gained.
The “Perfect” Home.
There was my search for buying a house, maybe an off-grid property. The problem is that the properties that I was remotely interested in that were held to my high standards were much too far away from Albany for reasonable commuting by automobile. Even if I could do it, it would add hours a day, burning gasoline as I got obese and risked dying in a car crash just to have land that I was only somewhat happy with when it came to ban on burn barrels, gun restrictions, land use, wild nature of land and country the property was located in, size and heating method of the house and being tied to grid. It just seemed like every thing out there, was expensive but offered limited benefit compared to my current arrangement. It was just less then perfect.
Simply said, all practical houses within a reasonable commuting distance where located within New York State, virtually all where the same vinyl siding on plywood sheet board with fiber glass insulation on 4×4 stick built, heated with prestigious amounts of fossil fuels and guzzling grid-tied electricity to heat and light poorly constructed modern structures. Maintance free garbage, designed to be used, used up and discarded. Not real wood, authentic cabins, heated by wood. While there was enough cabins, post-and-beam structures, some with wood stoves other remote properties with a reasonable amount of lands, places where you could have fires and haul your own trash to transfer station, few really checked all the boxes for me. It’s not such places don’t exist, but they certainly don’t exist within reasonable commuting distance, or they are the exception rather then the rule of places in Zillow. Eventually I just got tired of it all, burnt out, turned off and deleted the Zillow app from my phone, paid the increased rent on my truly diploated apartment of 18 1/2 years in suburbs of Albany instead just focusing on investing and building or buying that cabin when I retire.
There was that property next to my parents house that was on market for a while. First I didn’t ask about it right away, and I probably could have saved money had I reached out to landowner as soon as it was vacant, after their love one passed away. Then it went on the market, and I toured it with the Realtor but I decided not to persue it further as it had issues, and it lacked a woodstove. Plus it was right on the main road, with constant road truck noise, and had a werid inholding with my parents neighbor living it, and my parents just down the street. I would have had to be careful about what kind of fires I had there between that and being on main highway, not to mention, probably the neighbors wouldn’t like it if my hog pen smelled too much or any other livestock I might get, even if it was zoned agricultural, and the other folks up the street have lots of cattle and hogs themselves. But could I have made it work with just a big check? Sure, and I wouldn’t have to pay rent, but the property tax bills, the cost to fix and furnish the building, and especially the commuting costs would have added up to be more then I spend on my dumpy apartment. Plus money spent on the house, couldn’t grow in the markets. But it would have been okay, noting the limitations, yet I rejected it.
It’s not to say I don’t keep following several pages about timber framed houses, off-grid cabins, and remote living on Facebook. I am reminded another world is possible, as I followed New York Land Quest which sells hunting, farm and remote properties in Southern Tier and Christman Associates, the land seller and cabin builder in the Western Adirondacks and Tug Hill. Good places exists for the lifestyle I want, but the properties in the Albany area really don’t match up with that. And I do follow enough pages that places closer to what I want are in places like that out west, or even in the Upper Midwest in the great forests of Northern Wisconsin and Michigan. But even they certainly have pros and cons. Maybe there is no perfect place out there in this world, and I should settle for second best, but so far in all my time browsing real estate and looking at places – including touring that little house on the main road down from my parents – that is now sold and off the market, it burns me a little bit for being a perfectionist and rejecting what would have been good enough, I guess.
The Perfect SuperDuty
Then there was the Godzilla Holstein. The big SuperDuty truck, that on paper I loved everything about it until I test drove it. I hated how the steering wheel felt, the light gray interior that felt so cheap and easy to get dirty. It’s a work truck, but the light gray fabric seemed even worse then the light gray vinyl on my old Ford Ranger. And it as white, and all I could think of was the finger prints on the inside of the Chevy Traverse Shuttle Car they have at work from the road salt and sand, and how hideous it looks after all this time driving through the winter slop shuttling people between the suburban office building in Menands and Empire Plaza. And then I got my doubts about the reliability of the SuperDuty trucks and Godzilla engine after it seemed like one post after another about lifter failures. There was the Iran crisis, causing fuel prices to spiral out of control, and the 7.3L Godzilla engine seemed like an unreliable liability, even if it’s a simple but fuel hungry pushrod engine. But the truth is the gas milage especially don’t he highway would be as good if not better then my lifted Silverado. I sometimes regret telling the dealership I was no longer interested, but thanking them for the time and test drive. I guess until it sells, it’s still an option, but I hate to go back to dealership hat in hand, and pay a premium for being polite.
Truth is there are lot of options for base SuperDuties especially if I drop my requirement for the skid plates, and are willing to be flexible on the long-bed versus the short-bed, and consider both extended cabs and quad cabs. Suddenly there are a lot of XL and XLT trim trucks that would work for me, in my price range at many dealerships. Still, I wonder if I my skiddishness around the short-term thinking on the Iran War, and some stupid finger prints on the work shuttle lead me down the path to rejecting what otherwise would have been a pretty nice truck, well equipped for my needs, with nice blacked out wheels. How bad is white truly? The black accents against it were descent too. But when I told people it was a white truck, they were like how boring. And I couldn’t see myself with a white truck when the gray and black trucks are so much nicer and can be found at other dealerships, though maybe not with the perfect spec I want.
I am a bit frightened by the Iran War, and by Monday started to think that Godzilla Holstein truck could easily become the White Elephant truck if gas prices shot up and remained high, even if I don’t plan to drive it much except recreationally. And I just worry about the appearance of owning such a fancy looking truck, even if it’s just a dressed up work truck with blacked out wheels. And tough heavy duty engine and tranny, with a long bed. I also discovered that there are fewer options avaliable for truck caps with the long bed F-350, that gave me pause, no mid-rise cap and the modular steel Smart Cap and others that can be ordered and shipped of the shelf directly to you in a few weeks, isn’t avaliable for long beds. I also started to question the value of the upfitter switches, when I realized most of the lights in the truck cap I’d rather switch from the cap itself, and I also want switched power for the other circuits. But mostly I was freaked out about the Iran War, the cost of big SuperDuty and how bad it is to spend money on cars, that you could be otherwise investing, even if it really is only a few months of strong capital gains these days for me. And I hate the idea of everybody seeing that massive truck, thinking I must be either rich or have a massive truck payment. But the truth is I just want to spend money on something I actually care about, not some suburban house or Caribbean cruise, fancy clothes or luxury watch.
I keep looking at trucks, but I don’t want some crappy old Honda or truck that doesn’t serve my needs as I see it. I just don’t want to stuck with a truck I absolutely hate, after spending a rediculous amount of money.
