Overthinking: Don’t Get Stuck in Analysis Paralysis

It’s one thing to look before you leap. It only makes sense to consider the potential outcome or consequences of an action you’re about to take. But it’s another thing altogether to believe you can fully determine—or even guarantee—the outcome based on the amount of thinking you do about it.

Overthinking often consists of making multiple lists of pros and cons, running through if/then scenarios, trying to gather as much information as possible, or attempting to approach the issue from every conceivable angle. The process of trying to make a decision becomes overwhelming. Worse, it drains conscious (System 2) attention throughout the period of time you’re trying to make a particular decision. So the more thinking you do about it, the less effective your thinking becomes. You can find yourself going around and around in mental circles, either unable to make the decision or just taking a stab at something—anything—because you can’t stand thinking about it any longer.

Overthinking also begets second-guessing, in which you get to run through several rounds of “if only/then” scenarios.

Overthinking is driven by your brain’s craving for certainty. But thinking harder or longer about something won’t necessarily get you closer to an answer. Here’s why:

• In spite of your best efforts, your information will always be incomplete. There are things you don’t know, can’t know, or won’t know at the time you’re trying to decide, and any of those things could be important enough to affect the outcome. Unfortunately, we don’t know what we don’t know, and so we don’t take it into consideration.

• Even if you were to have access to all of the information, because you’re human you’re subject to numerous cognitive biases, which means you won’t be able to view it entirely objectively. For example, you will overweigh some information and underweigh, or even ignore, other information. System 2 thinking may be what you’re aware of, but System 1 still has plenty of input, and System 1 makes mistakes.

• You can’t account for randomness. The very idea of randomness makes your brain a little crazy, so it refuses to accept it. Your brain is under the impression it can find a cause-and-effect link for anything and everything. The consequences of randomness, according to physicist Leonard Mlodinow, are counterintuitive. (Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!)

• You can’t predict the future. Even more to the point, you can’t predict how you’re going to feel in the future. Daniel Gilbert, in Stumbling on Happiness, says we tend to think the future will be a lot like today…only different. But the future is fundamentally different from today, and the way you feel right now when you think about the consequences of taking some action is not necessarily the way you will feel when you are living with the consequences of that action.

• Taking any action can have unexpected results and undesired consequences. Although you can anticipate that such things might occur, you can’t plan for them because you won’t know what they are until after they happen.

Too much logical, linear thinking is as bad as too little. After framing the problem or situation and considering possible solutions, turn it over to your unconscious (System 1) for a while and see what it comes up with. Let your mind wander instead of keeping it on a tight leash. The sudden insight, moment of clarity, or change in perspective you get may surprise you. But this is the way the creative process works, and it’s a great way to use both parts of your brain to your advantage.

Additional reading: Intuition: Knowing without Knowing How We Know.