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My wife and I have made one trip for every car that we bought. 1. We wanted a used Honda Civic. We found a used Honda Civic online, at a good price relative to

My wife and I have made one trip for every car that we bought. 1. We wanted a used Honda Civic. We found a used Honda Civic online, at a good price relative to Blue Book. We went to the dealership and bought the Honda Civic. 2. We wanted a used Honda CR-V. We found a used Honda CR-V online, at a good price relative to Blue Book. We went to the dealership and bought the Honda CR-V. Both cars have been great. No need to overcomplicate things. Stepping back, I've noticed a certain cognitive bias that's very common, but I don't know what its name might be. Basically, the bias is the idea that spending more time gathering information and analyzing is always good. To which I respond... maybe in some limited, abstract, ceteris paribus sense, but in real life? Not really. 1. You're not taking account of the opportunity cost, the things you could be doing that you're not because you're stuck on this one thing. 2. There is such a thing as overthinking / analysis paralysis, where your thinking actually gets worse the more you obsess about something. You may be better off unplugging, taking a walk, and coming back with a clear mind. You may be able to make a quick decision that's reasonably close to optimal and ends the sinking of your time into this one particular thing.

OrvalWintermute 5y ago
1. I researched car reliability, resale value, makes and models and determined that a Honda Accord best met my requirements. 2. There was exactly one Honda dealership within driving distance in the state where I wanted to buy the vehicle 3. I acquired this vehicle. Later on, I was told that this was actually a Japanese Honda, and not an American Honda, and that the allegation was that although the same design, the Japanese Honda had superior reliability records and less variance around fittings, because the Japanese teams had a great deal of experience around assembly (at that time). More than 20 years later I am still driving the same vehicle, and I've had no major issues of any type. >1. You're not taking account of the opportunity cost, the things you could be doing that you're not because you're stuck on this one thing I do appreciate the point you made - there is an opportunity cost to your thinking, and overly focusing on one thing may be contrary. If I have learned anything from thinking about SV business models, it is that attention is a limited resource. Every moment we spend overanalyzing one thing, is time spent less on something more productive. > There is such a thing as overthinking / analysis paralysis, where your thinking actually gets worse the more you obsess about something. You may be better off unplugging, taking a walk, and coming back with a clear mind. You may be able to make a quick decision that's reasonably close to optimal and ends the sinking of your time into this one particular thing. "paralysis by analysis" is definitely a real thing. Although I believe it is important to go through the cognitive exercise of analysis, it can be counter-productive. Saw this at a workplace or two where budgets to execute projects were highly limited, so staff would analyze-to-death options for fairly low dollar activities. Spent more on analysis of paper projects by a factor, than actual project execution.
ozim 5y ago
People think they have to be clever/smart when simply not being stupid and not doing stupid things is often more than enough. Then they will go onto gold digging exercise to prove that they are smart to be smarter than those pesky dealers. In the end when thing they bought turns out crappy (no gold in that mine:)) they will get defensive about it and will pull all kind of mental gymnastics to confirm what they did was worth investing time. So such person won't even feel the opportunity cost, because they will make themselves believe that effort was necessary to find that good and they 'gamed the system'.

OrvalWintermute 5y ago

1. I researched car reliability, resale value, makes and models and determined that a Honda Accord best met my requirements. 2. There was exactly one Honda dealership within driving distance in the state where I wanted to buy the vehicle 3. I acquired this vehicle. Later on, I was told that this was actually a Japanese Honda, and not an American Honda, and that the allegation was that although the same design, the Japanese Honda had superior reliability records and less variance around fittings, because the Japanese teams had a great deal of experience around assembly (at that time). More than 20 years later I am still driving the same vehicle, and I've had no major issues of any type. >1. You're not taking account of the opportunity cost, the things you could be doing that you're not because you're stuck on this one thing I do appreciate the point you made - there is an opportunity cost to your thinking, and overly focusing on one thing may be contrary. If I have learned anything from thinking about SV business models, it is that attention is a limited resource. Every moment we spend overanalyzing one thing, is time spent less on something more productive. > There is such a thing as overthinking / analysis paralysis, where your thinking actually gets worse the more you obsess about something. You may be better off unplugging, taking a walk, and coming back with a clear mind. You may be able to make a quick decision that's reasonably close to optimal and ends the sinking of your time into this one particular thing. "paralysis by analysis" is definitely a real thing. Although I believe it is important to go through the cognitive exercise of analysis, it can be counter-productive. Saw this at a workplace or two where budgets to execute projects were highly limited, so staff would analyze-to-death options for fairly low dollar activities. Spent more on analysis of paper projects by a factor, than actual project execution.

ozim 5y ago

People think they have to be clever/smart when simply not being stupid and not doing stupid things is often more than enough. Then they will go onto gold digging exercise to prove that they are smart to be smarter than those pesky dealers. In the end when thing they bought turns out crappy (no gold in that mine:)) they will get defensive about it and will pull all kind of mental gymnastics to confirm what they did was worth investing time. So such person won't even feel the opportunity cost, because they will make themselves believe that effort was necessary to find that good and they 'gamed the system'.