“Why Can’t I Just Pick One?” The Stress of Too Much Choice

Picture the scene: You’re standing in your hallway, paint swatches fanned out like playing cards in one hand, three floor tile samples balanced awkwardly in the other. You glance over at the Hall Inspiration Pinterest board you’ve compiled on your tablet. And recoil as it mocks you with its 147 pins — all beautiful, all different. You’ve already spent three weekends trying to decide on the “right” look, but every option opens up ten more. And it’s Sunday night again now, and you’re still no closer to that decision.

The process of designing your home is meant to be exciting. But amongst the endless renovation decisions and the ongoing pressures of work and family life, what should feel creative becomes confusing and stressful.

In this post, I’ll explore why more choice doesn’t mean more freedom, and why decision-making gets harder the longer you sit with it. Then I’ll share a simple tool I use to cut through the noise — and explain why working with a designer doesn’t take away your control, but helps you make decisions with clarity and confidence.

The Pinterest Paradox: Inspiration or Overload?

You’re trying to be organised, so you save a few pins for hallway storage, maybe some panelling ideas. But before long, you’ve fallen down hundreds of rabbit holes with tiled vestibules in Italian villas, minimalist Scandi benches, and moody Georgian boot rooms. All beautiful. All compelling. All totally different from one another.

Pinterest, Instagram, and interiors magazines offer a smorgasbord of inspiration — and therein lies the problem. The more you scroll, the more conflicting options you gather. What began as a clear goal (a hallway that’s practical, welcoming, and suits your home) becomes muddled under the aesthetics of homes you don’t occupy, lives you don’t lead, and climates you don’t even live in.

In Barry Schwartz’s 2004 book, The Paradox of Choice, he argues that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers. The American psychologist reveals how this overload of choice becomes even more complicated by our own imaginations: “The existence of multiple alternatives makes it easy for us to imagine alternatives that don’t exist—alternatives that combine the attractive features of the ones that do exist.”

When we’re stressed we’re less able to make decisions. Studies have found that an abundance of options activates areas of the brain associated with conflict and anxiety, making the simple act of choosing feel like a genuine mental burden (Shenhav et al., 2014).

Research by the same team behind the Paradox of Choice, found that “maximizers” (those who strive to make the absolute best choice – aka Perfectionists!) tend to experience even greater stress and regret, despite making seemingly good decisions. “The goal of making the best possible choice becomes a source of stress when the options multiply — especially for those who tie their self-worth to outcomes.” (Schwartz et al., Maximizing Versus Satisficing, 2002)

Decision Fatigue Is Real — Especially in Renovations

Our home design decisions are rarely made in isolation. The hallway wall colour needs to work with the tiled floor, which needs to complement the staircase wood, which should coordinate with the upstairs landing carpet, which ties in with bedroom wall colours. Very quickly, one decision becomes five, then ten, and suddenly you’re trying to assemble an entire visual jigsaw in your head.

This is when confidence starts to slip. You revisit options you’d previously ruled out. You question choices you felt sure about. You tell yourself you just need more time — but what you really need is a break from deciding.

Psychologists call this decision fatigue — in which the quality of our decisions declines after making too many of them in a row. According to 1998 research by Roy Baumeister and colleagues, self-control, willpower, and decision-making all draw from a shared, limited pool of mental energy. As we exert our daily self-control and make various decisions (even small ones), this pool gets depleted — leading to poorer quality decisions, avoidance, impulsivity, or simply shutting down. Similar studies have been used to explain why judges, doctors, and consumers make worse or more conservative decisions later in the day, or after repeated decision-making sessions.

For some people, especially those juggling careers and families, the design choice paralysis can become wrapped up with feelings of guilt. With so many competing priorities, spending time on ‘frivolous’ design decisions starts to feel unjustifiable. And thus no decisions are made, or you just take the easiest, or safest – not necessarily the best.

With a designer’s framework, these myriad options become clear choices—not stress points.

Style Anchors: Creating a Framework That Filters

When you’re feeling stuck, avoid thinking the answer lies in seeing more options. Clarity comes from filtering rather than from adding. One of the most helpful things you can do at the start of a design project is to identify a small number of style anchors, filters to apply to the choices and avoid them becoming overwhelming.

A style anchor might be a piece of art you love or perhaps the colours of the garden outside. It doesn’t need to be a fully formed vision — because the real magic of a style anchor is when you focus on how it evokes a special feeling or emotion. Calmness, creativity, joy, passion. From there, the rest of the decisions can be held up against that anchor: Does this work with the feeling I’m aiming for? Does it enhance or distract from that core idea?

Designers do this instinctively. I begin every project by asking questions that help clients uncover not just what they like—but why. The answers often point to deeper themes: a need for calm, a love of warmth, or a desire for understated elegance. Once we know what’s driving the decisions emotionally, the rest of the choices become far easier. You’re not choosing randomly — you’re choosing within a frame that reflects your inherent tastes and the way you want your home to feel.

Interior Designers: Curating not Dictating

Schwartz writes in the Paradox of Choice that freedom to choose has “expressive value. Choice is what enables us to tell the world who we are and what we care about.” A good designer doesn’t walk in and tell you what your home should look like. They help you uncover your style and its potential, ensuring your personal tastes, daily needs and long-term goals all pull in the same direction.

My role is to curate, not dictate. I take the hundreds of potential options and distil them down to a focused, tailored set of choices that work together, reflect your taste, and serve your lifestyle. This consultative process gives you space to feel heard and involved, but without the burden of navigating it all alone.

Design decisions still belong to you — but they’re framed, structured, and stress-tested, so that you can move forward with confidence, not confusion. It’s about avoiding expensive mistakes, unnecessary replacements, and that nagging sense of “I wish I’d done it differently.” Instead, we create a design journey that feels thoughtful, streamlined, and genuinely satisfying.