There is a term in decision theory called satisficing — coined by Herbert Simon — for choosing the first option that meets your criteria, rather than searching for the mathematically optimal one.
It gets treated like the lesser cousin of ‘maximizing,’ the strategy of gathering every possible option and picking the objective best. But maximizing has a cost that rarely gets priced in: time, attention, and the compounding exhaustion of never being able to close a decision and move on.
The research on this is fairly consistent. People who maximize tend to end up with objectively better outcomes on paper, and report being less satisfied with them. They keep comparing what they got to what they might have gotten instead. Satisficers report higher satisfaction with outcomes that are, on paper, worse.
This is not an argument for carelessness. A satisficer still does the work — they set a real standard, they gather real information, they make a real decision. The difference is where the process ends. A maximizer stops when they run out of options to compare. A satisficer stops when the option in front of them clears the bar they set on purpose, in advance, before they went looking.
Knowing where that bar is, and trusting it once you have cleared it, is the actual skill. It is not lower effort. It is a different definition of when the effort is finished.