Edit wiki/decisions/information-gathering.md — Work Reflections

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# information gathering

how much research should you do before making a decision? the answer is almost never "all of it."

## the diminishing returns curve

information gathering follows a steep diminishing returns curve. the first 30 minutes of research on a topic often gives you 70% of the useful information. the next 3 hours might give you another 20%. the remaining 10% could take days.

the question isn't "do i have enough information?" — you never will. the question is "will more information change my decision?"

## the 70% rule

i aim to make decisions at roughly 70% information. that's enough to be directionally right without burning time on diminishing returns. for [[reversible-vs-irreversible|type 2 decisions]], even 50% might be fine — just try it and course-correct.

for type 1 decisions, push closer to 85-90%. but never 100%. 100% is a fantasy, and waiting for it is its own form of risk.

## failure modes

- **asking too many people** — every new opinion adds noise. after 3-4 informed perspectives, more opinions usually just create confusion.
- **not distinguishing signal from noise** — some information sources are much more valuable than others. one conversation with someone who's done the thing is worth 20 blog posts about the thing.

## the best information sources

ranked by signal density:

1. **doing the thing** — nothing beats direct experience. often faster than research. if you can prototype or test cheaply, do that instead of researching. see [[vibe-coding]] for how this applies to software.
2. **talking to someone who's done it** — high bandwidth, can ask follow-up questions, they know what actually mattered vs what seemed important
3. **case studies / postmortems** — real outcomes, not theory
4. **structured frameworks** — models that help you think, not answers that tell you what to do
5. **general advice** — often too generic to be actionable. "it depends" is usually the honest answer.

## when to stop gathering

signs you have enough information:

- your decision hasn't changed with the last few inputs
- you can articulate the key tradeoffs clearly
- you know what you don't know, and you've decided it's acceptable not to know it
- the cost of waiting is starting to exceed the cost of being slightly wrong

this connects to [[operation-optimization]] — information gathering is itself a process that can be optimized. don't just research the decision; optimize how you research.