DAN ARIELY

Updates

An app for tough decisions.

July 15, 2010 BY danariely

You might remember reading in Predictably Irrational that it turns out that when we are choosing between two or more very similar options, we tend NOT to take into account the consequences of not deciding. For example, in the parable of the donkey, the unfortunate creature is placed in the middle of two identical stacks of hay. Unable to decide which stack to go for, the donkey starves and dies.

In another example, a friend of mine spent three months choosing between two different cameras, only to miss countless photo opportunities that he will never get back. And given how similar the two cameras were, he might have been better off simply flipping a coin.

To remedy this situation, I had the idea of creating Procrastinator for iPhone. This application allows you to set deadlines for your hard decisions so that when time is up, if you haven’t chosen an option, Procrastinator chooses for you. Thus, no more endless deciding back and forth, and no more lost time. Procrastinator is really easy to use, and you can have as many decisions as you would like running at the same time. You can find Procrastinator here.

p.s this app costs $1.99, and the money goes to to pay the nice and hardworking undergraduate students that created this app, and hopefully will continue to create other ones as well.