I have worn glasses since elementary school days. In about 1975 I started wearing soft contact lenses and did so for many years, until my reading vision started to become a problem. When that happened, I started to use reading glasses, but got tired of carrying them around, and went to progressives. I have tried contacts again now and then, and have also tried the monovision thing using contacts. It was OK, but I did not like driving with that arrangement at night. Vision was just not crisp enough to feel safe.
My issue now is that I am going to still need correction for my non cataract eye for I would expect a year or more. I will go through a short period where I have a corrected right eye, but a left eye that needs correction. Have not figured out how I will deal with that, but wearing a contact in one eye, and reading glasses is an option. Getting my glasses changed again is another option.
In any case I think I will go for the best correction I can for distance, and deal with the reading using reading glasses or if I still need some distance correction with progressives. The hope would be that no distance correction is required, once both eyes are done…
I also read that there were issues with the multifocal IOL’s, and plan to avoid them. Consumer Reports does not recommend them, but also admitted it was based on data from 2012, so somewhat dated.