Draining the Swimming Pool

I want to continue my journey regarding information availability today, but from a different angle - that of the futile search for the perfect information set, or, in more common terms, analysis paralysis.

Business me vs. personal me tend to be two completely different animals (and not in the "different facets of your personality for different situations" way.  Potentially to my detriment, I try not to divorce my work personality vs. my home personality.  What you see in one setting isn't likely to be different from the other setting, MSNBC advice be damned!).  

At work, I'm likely to feel comfortable with incomplete information or partially implemented solutions that meet a proximate goal.

At home, I'm much more obsessed with simplification to the point of making and editing lists over and over again (to the point that I recently generated a "List of Likes" with various media I've either enjoyed or am using for future recommendations) until I come up with the "perfect" solution.  More often than not, I fail at this task.

Take recipes as a concrete example.  For at least the last decade (and maybe 2 or 3), I've been obsessed with finding a core list of recipes that I can make night-in and night-out with minimal effort and without paring the list too far to suffer from HelloFresh fatigue.

If I take a more reasoned, objective viewpoint, I've actually done fairly well - I've got about 15-20 recipes (many of them variations of pizza) that I can put together consistently.  From any other standpoint, I'd say that deserves a pat on the back (and I'll take this opportunity to virtually pat myself on the back - Good job, me!).  

But, the perfectionist in me obsesses until the onset of recipe fatigue - I should have at least 45 recipes to ensure that there's some variation month-to-month; I should have seasonal recipes to take advantage of fresh ingredients, to be eco-conscious, and for greater variation; I should reserve a few recipes for special occasions, even if the recipes are more involved; and so on and so on.

Instead of relying on those core recipes that have now become de facto canon and allowing for experimentation on the other 15-20 nights of the month, my irrational side takes over.  This is partly because experimentation is a lot of hard work - What do I feel like eating? How many recipe variations of recipes do I want to sift through?  How much time do I want to spend on the effort?  How far ahead do I want to plan? 

It's also largely about a sense of control - What if it turns out poorly?  What if I have to look for some random ingredient that the grocery store doesn't have?  What if I forget about a recipe that I really enjoyed and fret that it's forever on the tip of tongue?  What if I can't remember my core list of recipes amidst too much variation?

If it isn't obvious, this need for control leads to a fair amount of stress (admittedly, it's fairly low level in this example, despite the harried tone of my post to this point.  I am not, in fact, in a constant state of recipe paralysis).  But it also leads to increased chaos - the exact opposite of what it's intended to combat.

In my search to simplify, I've collected cookbooks, both printed and virtual, and endless variations of recipes online.  What was ultimately supposed to result in a cultivated list of simple recipes is now a record of a frantic - and potentially fruitless - search.

My slow progress doesn't bother me so much in my personal life.  The volume allows me to find hidden gems that I clicked on during a manic phase from the past, and I am slowly working toward that master list.  And there is a definite joy in the journey, even if the destination is eternally across the horizon.

However, if you don't have a decade or more to pursue your outcomes, you probably need a different strategy.  As with all things, there's a balance.  Where previously I argued against an ocean of available information and too many metrics, here I'm arguing against analysis paralysis and trying to whittle everything down to perfect distillation of information.

Iteration is definitely your friend in situations like these.  Collect enough information to meet your immediate goals.  And, to be prudent, maybe go one step further to think of a few scenarios that aren't in your immediate view.  Doing so will also probably make your current solution both more robust and more efficient, as it adds some context that isn't encapsulated in your immediate bubble.  But, after that, stop.  There will always be more information to consider, and, yes, you may make mistakes, but prudent action trumps interminable waiting every time.  Set limits, even if they're artificial, in collecting and acting on information.

And, as I said, iteration is your friend.  Mistakes lead to a wealth of information (information theory even posits that mistakes allow you to progress faster than pure research with increasingly better outcomes) and, if you've structured your work appropriately, another iteration shouldn't be costly.  In these cases, you can be comfortable with the pipeline of information flowing past without worrying that it's going to overwhelm you.

Also, ignore everything I just said if you're designing systems that affect people's well-being, like jet planes. But, I suspect, in most cases, you're not doing that. 

Bon appetit!

Until next time, my human and robot friends.