What the data actually shows
Barry Schwartz's work on the 'paradox of choice' draws a useful distinction between 'maximizers,' who exhaustively search for the single best option, and 'satisficers,' who choose an option that is good enough and move on. Across studies, maximizers tend to report more regret and lower satisfaction with their choices than satisficers, even when their objective outcomes are comparable. Trying to optimise everything appears to come at a cost to how you feel about what you chose.
Research on regret by Gilovich and Medvec (1995) found that the structure of regret shifts over time. In the short term, people more often regret actions they took; over the long term, regrets of inaction — the things they did not do or try — tend to loom larger and last longer. For reversible choices in particular, this points toward weighting somewhat against inaction, since a passive 'no' can become a more durable regret than an active attempt that did not pan out.
A further pattern in decision research is that distinguishing reversible from irreversible decisions changes how much deliberation is warranted. Many choices can be undone or adjusted, which lowers the stakes of getting them exactly right; a smaller set are genuinely hard to reverse and deserve more care. Treating every decision as if it were permanent tends to inflate both deliberation and later regret.
Why this feels different from how it actually is
Decisions feel higher-stakes than the data suggests partly because, before choosing, you can vividly imagine every path, while afterward you only ever live one. The unchosen options stay perfect and untested in your mind, so almost any real outcome can suffer by comparison to roads you never actually had to walk.
Modern life also presents more options than the mind comfortably handles. The same abundance that looks like freedom — more careers, partners, products, places to live — raises the implied standard for a 'best' choice and multiplies the alternatives you can second-guess yourself against. More options can mean more potential regret, not less, which is the heart of Schwartz's paradox.
And there is an asymmetry in attention: a single decision feels momentous in the moment, but people consistently underestimate how much they adapt afterward. The weight you give a choice while making it tends to exceed the weight its outcome will actually carry in your life a year or two later, which is part of why decisions feel so loaded.
What the research says to do about it
Lean toward satisficing on most decisions: set criteria for 'good enough,' take the first option that clearly meets them, and stop searching. The research associates this with less regret and more satisfaction than exhaustive optimisation, and it reserves your deliberation for the few choices that truly warrant it. Good enough, chosen and committed to, tends to outperform a perfect option endlessly pursued.
Sort decisions by reversibility before deciding how hard to deliberate. For reversible choices, decide quickly, treat them as experiments, and adjust if needed — and given that long-term regret tends to favour inaction, lean toward trying rather than passing. Reserve heavier deliberation for the genuinely irreversible decisions, which are rarer than they feel.
Limit the option set and the comparison. Reducing how many alternatives you consider, and resisting the urge to keep comparing after you have decided, both tend to lower regret. After an irreversible choice in particular, deliberately stopping the comparison with paths you can no longer take is part of what protects satisfaction with the path you are on.
What the research says does not help
Exhaustively searching for the single best option does not protect you from regret; the research links this maximizing style to more regret and less satisfaction, not less. Holding out for perfect tends to raise the standard you judge your choice against and keep the unchosen alternatives alive in your mind.
Trying to gather enough information to remove all uncertainty does not work, because most real decisions stay uncertain no matter how much you research. Past a point, additional comparison mainly fuels second-guessing rather than improving the choice, and it delays the commitment that actually allows satisfaction to set in.
Aiming for a regret-free outcome is itself the wrong target, since outcomes depend partly on luck you cannot control. A sound process can still meet a bad result, and judging your decision purely by how it turned out — outcome bias — tends to manufacture regret over choices that were reasonable given what you knew at the time.
Real numbers in context
It would be misleading to attach a precise number to how much these pointers reduce regret, and the research does not support one; the findings are about direction and tendency, not guarantees. Schwartz's maximizer–satisficer distinction and Gilovich and Medvec's action–inaction work describe reliable patterns across studies, but effect sizes vary and individual results differ.
What the evidence supports stating plainly is the shape of the patterns. Maximizers, on average, report more regret and less satisfaction than satisficers. Short-term regret skews toward actions taken, while long-term regret skews toward inaction and the things people did not try. And treating reversible choices as reversible — quick, adjustable experiments — tends to lower the deliberation and the regret they generate. These are honest tendencies to lean on, not formulas.