The Cure for Bad Information

We naturally gravitate toward information that is easy to collect, familiar, or validates what we believe to be true.

Even then, gathering that type of information consumes time and attention while doing almost nothing to advance the quality of a decision.

You could also take a different approach: Spend only time gathering information that will affect your decision.

To do that, think about information like this:

Factual Information. Some of the information you want is knowable, which is referred to as "fact." Facts are about things that have already happened.

Uncertain Information. In other cases, the information is not knowable, or at least not at an acceptable cost. This information is referred to as an “uncertainty.” Generally, this is about the future. Don’t waste time trying to pinpoint information about the future. It’s more helpful to think about a range (low/base/high) with the idea that “it’s in there somewhere.”

If it turns out you need a tighter range to make a decision, now you know what to research.

There are two more ways to think about information that can help.

Material Information. Material information could change your mind about the best course of action. The strategy here is to seek information that could disconfirm, disprove, or change your original beliefs.

Reliable Information. To be valuable, information must also be reliable. You need confidence in the source of the information.

Just saying.