We want each decision to make our future easier than our present. If we act too soon we might miss out on vital information, and if we wait too long we miss out on opportunity. ## How to think about how long to wait Generally we want to either decide as soon as possible (ASAP) or wait as long as possible (ALAP) when choosing when to decide. There are also diminishing returns we want to factor in. ![[when-to-decide-usefulness-of-information.jpeg]] ![[when-to-decide-matrix.jpeg]] ## When to act: STOP, FLOP, or KNOW - STOP: When you stop gathering useful information - E.g. horse handicappers predicted a race with the same accuracy with 5, 10, 20, or 50 pieces of information - Beyond a certain minimal amount of info, we only feed [[Confirmation bias]] - Signs you're at STOP: - You're googling things desperately for more information - You're asking people for advise who are more than one step removed and/or don't have experience with this problem - You're going over the same arguments or pieces of information more than once - FLOP: When you first lose an opportunity - The point of waiting longer is to increase optionality, and losing opportunities is the opposite of that - KNOW: When you know it's time to act - This can be a critical piece of information or a gut feeling ## How to preserve optionality - Invert the situation and avoid the worst outcome - What's the worst outcome for the decision you're making? How could we eliminate the odds of that? - Shoot bullets before cannonballs - Take smaller, low-risk steps before larger, higher-risk steps - Test hypotheses before shooting big - Take time to sit with a decision you've made - Sleep on every major decision before announcing it - Check in with our rational brain and our emotional selves to verify our assumptions - We start to see information in a new light - Don't be afraid to look stupid - This is likely going to happen if you preserve optionality or wait to act - You can't do what everyone else does and expect different results ## Additional thoughts - The ignorance paradox: A little bit of easy information can be a bad thing when we make decisions based on incomplete information - This can happen when we look for information closer to when we must make a decision