What did you have for lunch?

What did you have for lunch? Same as yesterday? You’re not alone.

In 2017, a poll of 2,000 people by the New Covent Garden Soup Company produced the headline statistic that one in six people had eaten the same lunch every day for at least two years.

Cheese sandwiches and ham sandwiches are apparently the favourites.

Repetition can be comforting. Lack of choice can sometimes be a relief. It can also inspire action.

Behavioural scientist Sheena Iyengar analysed company-sponsored retirement programmes for nearly 800,000 workers, looking at how the participation rates varied as a function of the number of fund choices offered.  

She found that the more choices that were offered, the less likely employees were to enrol in the programme at all. But when only two were offered, participation was around 75%.

But what if reduced choice doesn’t give you a good outcome?

Many people still want nice things – but not the paradox of choice.

The alternative - outsourcing this decision making - might once have been something for time-poor celebrities or incredibly wealthy people.

People who have a personal chef to tell them what to eat, colour consultants to tell them what to wear and book curators to tell them what to read (or what will look good on their bookshelves).

But we can all outsource this daily decision making now.

Hello Fresh takes the stress out of meal planning. Stitch Fix takes the stress out of clothes shopping. Mainstreet Books will take the faff out of choosing your next book – the list goes on.

It doesn’t mean you’re getting terrible food, clothes or books, but instead, all the satisfaction of feeling as if someone has read your mind, understood your inner soul and taken all that indecision away to give you a fabulous, high-value outcome.

All made possible because of the detailed data these companies can extract from people wanting to use their services.

This is something you’ve been doing for eons. Whittling down those choices, curating them on your clients' behalf, and presenting the ones that are going to give them a potentially life-changing solution.

Imagine the additional satisfaction when someone does that for you with something you don’t understand.

And regardless of what you have for lunch, your habits will never be as eyebrow-raising as the man who claims he eats Christmas dinner every single day.