Is it too much or too little information?

Have it ever occur to you sometimes we don’t act on something or we are afraid to act on something simply not because we don’t have the necessary information to make the appropriate decision but rather we have too much information and hence became confuse and do not know what to do?

Just consider the stock market pickers up there. Go to any bookshop and you will find dozens of those selves proclaim gurus publishing self-improvement books proclaiming on how to become the best stock traders. Newbie in stock trading would have become confuse with all the different techniques pertaining to stock trading.

The same goes for those books on how to become rich or how to become the best Internet marketers. At the end of the day it up to us to filter out those tons of information and to pick up those ideas, techniques or advice that best suits our risk appetites and expectations. What works for you may not work for another person though? As the saying goes, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. There is nothing wrong with gathering information before we decide the next course of actions. However we ought to set a limit as to how much information is considered enough and to act on it thereafter. A good analogy would be that of reading and gathering as much information regarding computer programming but missing the point of not actually getting ourselves with the actual hands on such as writing a program and seeing it runs on the computer.

In summary, set a date as to when, how long and how much you wish to gather the information of interest and after that set another timeline to act on it. As you carry out your objective, in most circumstances you will know deep down inside you if the information you have thus far gathered is adequate or if you need further information to fill the gaps. If you feel that you need further information to proceed, set a new timeline as to how much and how long you will spend on the information gathering process and a new time to act on it. By doing so you will not fall into the trap of experiencing the fear of too much information and not knowing how to act on it.