Sunday morning, February 8th. I'm watching someone at the coffee shop compare five different water bottles on their phone. They've got spreadsheets. Customer reviews. Material composition analyses. They've been at this for twenty minutes. I want to tell them: the decision doesn't matter nearly as much as they think, and all this research is making them worse at choosing, not better. But I don't. They'll figure it out in another twenty minutes when they give up exhausted and buy nothing. Too much information doesn't clarify decisions. It clouds them.

The Thesis

More information makes you feel more prepared but actually makes worse decisions. Having "all the data" creates decision paralysis, false confidence in overthought choices, and the illusion that the decision is more important than it is. The optimal amount of information for most decisions is far less than you think, and definitely less than you have access to. We've mistaken information abundance for decision quality, when the relationship is inverse: past a certain threshold, more information actively degrades your judgment by obscuring what actually matters.

This happens constantly:

  • The job seeker who researches companies so thoroughly they develop analysis paralysis and can't commit to applying anywhere
  • The investor who reads every analyst report and still can't pull the trigger, missing opportunities while "gathering more data"
  • The parent who reads 47 parenting books and becomes less confident than the parent who read none and just trusted their instincts
  • The developer who evaluates every framework for three weeks and ends up picking the wrong one because the decision-making process exhausted their judgment
  • You, reading restaurant reviews until all the options blur together and you end up at the same place you always go

The pattern is universal: The more information you gather, the harder it becomes to see what matters. You're not getting clearer signal—you're adding noise and calling it thoroughness.

Why More Information Fails

Information creates the illusion of control:

When you have data, you feel like you're making a "informed decision." You're not winging it. You've done your homework. This feels responsible. Mature. Smart.

But most decisions don't require that much information. You're not landing a Mars rover. You're choosing a CRM system. The difference between choice A and B is probably marginal, and the research is giving you false confidence that you can predict which is better.

More often, you're just postponing the decision and calling it diligence.

Too much information obscures the signal:

When you have 3 data points, it's easy to see the pattern. When you have 300, everything contradicts everything. Some reviews love the product. Others hate it. Some data suggests this approach works. Other data suggests the opposite.

You started researching to reduce uncertainty. Instead, you've surfaced every edge case, every conflicting opinion, every possible failure mode. Now you're more confused than when you started, just with fancier vocabulary for your confusion.

The signal-to-noise ratio degrades as you add information. The first few pieces of data tell you most of what matters. Everything after that is diminishing returns or actively misleading context.

Research becomes procrastination:

Here's the uncomfortable truth: most information gathering is decision avoidance. You're scared to commit, so you tell yourself you need "just a bit more data." Then a bit more. Then a bit more.

It feels productive. You're learning! You're being thorough! But you're not getting closer to a decision—you're getting farther away. You're building a research fortress to hide in while pretending you're preparing for battle.

The research is the procrastination. Calling it "due diligence" doesn't change that.

What Actually Works

Decide with 70% information:

Jeff Bezos famously said most decisions should be made at 70% information. Not 90%. Not 100%. Seventy percent.

Why? Because getting from 70% to 90% takes disproportionate time and rarely changes the decision. You're burning hours to get marginally more confident in roughly the same choice.

And here's the key: most decisions are reversible anyway. If you're wrong, you'll course correct. The time you saved by deciding faster is worth more than the marginal accuracy improvement from more research.

Know what actually matters:

For most decisions, only 2-3 variables actually matter. Everything else is noise.

Choosing an apartment? Location, price, and whether you like the space. The school district, the future resale value, the neighborhood crime stats—if you're renting for two years, these barely matter compared to "can I afford it and does it feel good?"

Identify the 2-3 things that actually drive the decision. Gather enough information to evaluate those. Ignore the rest. You're not making a worse decision—you're making a faster one that's probably just as good.

Set a research deadline:

Give yourself a fixed time budget for decisions. One hour for purchases under $500. One day for job applications. One week for major life choices.

When time's up, you decide with whatever information you have. No extensions. No "I just need to check one more thing."

This forces you to prioritize what actually matters and prevents research from metastasizing into indefinite procrastination. The deadline makes the decision for you—you just choose the best option available when time expires.

Trust your gut (more than you think):

Your intuition is processing information you can't consciously access. It's pattern matching based on years of experience. For many decisions, especially in domains you have experience in, your gut is probably right.

Yes, verify it's not just bias or fear. But don't discount it. If something feels wrong after exhaustive research, it probably is wrong. If something feels right despite imperfect information, it's probably right enough.

Information can't tell you what you value or what you'll regret. Only you know that. And you probably already know it before you start researching.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Most information gathering is security theater. You're not actually improving the decision—you're performing the ritual of "being thorough" to justify the choice you're going to make anyway (or to justify not choosing at all).

The person who makes a gut call in 10 minutes often ends up as happy as the person who agonized for 10 hours. Sometimes happier—they didn't burn emotional energy on a decision that doesn't matter nearly as much as it feels like it does in the moment.

Here's what you should actually do:

  • Set a research timer - Give yourself 20% of the time you think you need
  • Identify the 2-3 variables that matter - Ignore everything else
  • Gather just enough signal - Stop when you have 70% confidence
  • Make the call - Commit when time's up, regardless of how "ready" you feel
  • Learn from outcomes - You'll calibrate what information actually matters over time

The decision is probably less important than it feels. The information you're gathering is probably less useful than it seems. And the analysis paralysis is definitely more costly than making a slightly suboptimal choice and moving on.

Stop researching. Start deciding. You already know enough.

Today's Sketch

February 08, 2026