Case study · Fork in the road · one decision, six comparisons
Two good options, eleven days, one afternoon to decide
A genuine fork with no bad answer, stalled for eleven days. Six one-dimension comparisons settled it in an afternoon.
A real decision faced while building this site, written up afterwards. No client, no invented numbers — the counts are the actual comparisons.
Why two good options are harder than one good and one bad
A bad option does the work for you: you notice the flaw and the choice collapses. Two good options offer no flaw to find, so the mind keeps circling, hoping a new fact will arrive and decide on its own. It rarely does.
Eleven days passed on this one. Nothing new arrived in that time except the cost of not choosing, which is the only thing that reliably grows while you wait.
Stop comparing the options; compare one dimension at a time
Asking 'which is better overall' forces you to hold two whole futures in your head and score them. That is the same absolute-judgment problem that makes rating scales useless for prioritising.
Break it up instead. Which is easier to undo? Which do I have evidence about? Which will I regret not trying? Each question is a single forced choice between two things, and each takes seconds.