I’m rather a cautious person.
So when I start something new, I try to gather as much information as possible before making decisions and planning so that I can succeed at once.
However, I recently noticed that there is a limit to this method.
Certainly, such a comprehensive method may be suitable for “answering to the quiz” or something extremely simple.
However, the problems we encounter in the real world are more complicated and varied, and chaotic, so the method of “gathering as much information as possible and then surely finding the correct answer” will never work.
If I explain the reason in a little more detail, firstly collecting information costs time and money. Second, the more information you have, the harder it is to make decisions or take action. Third, no matter how accurate decisions are made, it is not possible to read the actions of competitors.
Then what should I do? That is the method of “making good use of intuition.” In other words, it means to make a hypothesis and test it, “Isn’t it going to work this way?”
Of course, intuition is not enough, so its correctness must be verified logically. However, it is easier to succeed if you take the method of making a hypothesis in that way than if you try to find the correct answer at once by comprehensively examining it.
For example, I would like to say that trying three times with 60% accuracy works better in terms of cost and results than trying to find the correct answer at once with 90% accuracy.
Until now, I had misunderstood that making decisions means drawing conclusions mechanically based on correct information. Instead, I think it means applying imagination, thoughts, and experiences. Information is just a supplement to doing that.
This may be easier to understand if you apply it to studying maths at school. For example, if there is a student who thinks that mathematics is formally applied to derive an answer, he is probably not good at mathematics. It is because the way of applying the formula and solving mechanically works well only in the calculation drill.
In the real entrance exam, there are no questions that can be solved in this way. The important thing in learning mathematics is to make hypotheses such as “it may be possible to solve in this way” or “this approach may be working”, and try these ideas one by one.
Logical thinking is needed to explain why the approach works, but logic alone does not work. Using your intuition is necessary. Even in mathematics, logical thinking is not enough, much more the real problems.
It’s been a long digression, but I would like to say that it’s important to use your intuition and make the hypothesis to solve problems. So how does our intuition works?
Ultimately, I think that there is no choice but to accumulate a lot of experience by repeating trial and error. However, there are things you should never do. That is “gathering too much information.”
If you collect too much information, you’ll have your hands full with processing it, and you can’t afford to imagine what to do. In other words, you are drowning in information.
So, when you try something new, you probably want to do some preliminary research first, but if you come up with the hypothesis on the way, stop collecting the information. If you do more than that, you will be drowned in information and get confusing.
Not enough information sounds just right.