Weekly Mix #264 - Why you don't need more data to make a decision

Simplifying, Golf Psychology, Maximizing Productivity, Prefab Homes & AI Tools

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Happy Monday!

One of the articles this week is focused on a quote from Adam Robinson, telling the story of a psychology experiment.

In this experiment, horse bettors were slowly given more and more data. They provided the confidence in their bets, and their performance was studied.

More data didn't increase performance. But it did increase confidence, which led to mistakes.

I also started listening to a new podcast this week: Build with Leila Hormozi.

Episodes are short, 10-15 minutes, and cover a key aspect of building a great business.

What I appreciate is the simplicity: she manages to summarize a topic quickly, providing good examples without sacrificing detail.

Both reminded me that we tend to overcomplicate things.

Leila attributes most business success to "massive action."

How often do we overcomplicate things, looking for one more piece of data, or one more addition to the pros/cons list before we make a decision?

How often are we thinking too much, when we should be doing something?

Probably most of the time.

Have a great week!

Graham

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Links

📚 Book Notes: Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect - Bob Rotella - As we head into golf season, I've been ramping up my practice, but also my reading about the mental side of the game. The Inner Game of Golf is still my top pick, but this book was also good, with some good examples and practical advice.

📖 Blog Post: 24 Things I Do to Maximize My Productivity - I'm slowly getting back into the habit of writing more, which was one of my goals in moving to the 4-day work week.

Partly as a reminder to myself, this is a list of all the important things I do each week to be productive.

📖 Adam Robinson on Understanding - Matt Mullenweg - This post is mostly a quote from Tribe of Mentors. The gist is this: in 1974, psychologist Paul Slovic wanted to study the effect of information on decision-making.

He gave a group of horse bettors an increasing amount of information. First five data points, then ten, then twenty, then forty.

The accuracy of their predictions didn't change. But their confidence in those predictions did! Which meant they bet more, and lost more.

I think about this story a lot in the context of startups and decision-making. Often we search for more detailed data, or a more complex model. But all that may be doing is falsely increasing our confidence. And that may mean we could plan better if we made things simpler.

🏠 Attic Dwellings prefab homes - This Nova Scotian company just came out with a new set of available pre-fab homes.

Pre-fabricated homes are one of the potential ways to reduce costs in building, and at the very least they extend the building season and efficiency, because large parts of them can be built indoors, not subject to the weather.

I particularly like the Gable Ends cottage.

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