The small upgrade choices that we make are hard to reverse once we’ve experienced them. I call them one-way doors.

Some one-way doors are completely worth it. Others are doorways to lifestyle creep; that slippery slope to increasing your standard of living as your income rises.

Heated seats in my car are a one-way door I’ll gladly commit to. Once you’ve got them you’re never going back.

Paying for apps, books, courses or coaching that make my life more organized, enable me to learn more and become more self-aware are one-way doors I’ll gladly walkthrough.

But there are other one-way doors that I avoid to keep the lifestyle creep from taking over. 

I’m optimizing for the freedom and flexibility of my time. That’s how I define success for myself. Money plays a role in achieving that success but it’s not the main metric.

I’m aware of the one-way doors and I’m careful to choose which ones I walk through in order to optimize for time instead of a ‘nicer’ lifestyle. 

On a somewhat related note...
Jeff Bezos used the analogy of one-way doors when describing decision making. Here's a great write up on this concept on the Farnam Street blog.