Satisficing
Etymology
A portmanteau of "satisfy" and "suffice," coined by Herbert Simon in 1956; he noted it revived a Northern English and Scots dialect word. It names accepting an option that is merely adequate rather than maximal. The blend is deliberate — flag it as a coinage.
verb · /SAT-iss-fy-sing/
Choosing the first option that clears a "good enough" bar instead of searching for the best possible one.
What it names
A precise name for a smart everyday move: when full optimization would cost more than it’s worth, you set a threshold and take the first thing that meets it — the antidote to endless comparison.
Example
For a weeknight dinner I satisfice — first decent recipe with ingredients I already have wins.
Related idea
It is the behavior that bounded rationality predicts, and it makes sense precisely because of diminishing returns: past "good enough," extra searching buys steeply less.