Narrow framing tricks us into false either-or choices

The Heaths identify narrow framing — reducing a decision to "should I do X or not X" — as one of the most common and costly decision traps, because it silently eliminates options that were never seriously considered. Most consequential choices, they argue, actually have more viable paths than the binary framing suggests, but the binary frame feels natural because it requires less cognitive effort to evaluate.

Their countermeasure is deliberately widening the option set before evaluating anything: asking what you'd do if your current top choice vanished, or seeking out people who've solved a similar problem successfully to see what options they considered that you haven't. Multitracking — comparing several options simultaneously rather than one at a time — surfaces information that sequential evaluation misses entirely.

Takeaway: before evaluating your options, check whether you've actually generated enough of them to be choosing from a real set.