Spaghetti Thinking

Ever find your self looking at a situation and immediately thinking “what a mess” or have you found yourself overthinking and getting caught up in a web of complex thoughts; The complexity tends to overwhelm and you are unable to make a decision ? Both the situations tend to arise from what is known as analysis paralysis. The first situation also arises due to someone over complicating the thinking, and making decisions that create what they perceived as solutions when nothing was needed. Got thinking about these situations due to what I have observed in the last few weeks. 

There is a simple way to avoid this kind of analysis paralysis and spaghetti thinking which comes from the world of project management. I am more than sure that the concept can also be applied anywhere a decision is needed. One has to do risk assessment or utilise the concepts of risk assessment. The core of this process is a fundamental recognition of the inherent uncertainties and potential consequences that surround all our choices. One has to acknowledge that every decision caries some risk and by careful evaluation and management of the risk the outcome would be much better. This approach also considers the likelihood of a possible outcome. This helps us look at multiple possibilities and discard the ones that have zero or minimal potential of becoming reality.  This approach requires that one have clarity of the goal along with finding the right balance between risk and reward. When faced with a choice that one thinks one has to act upon, the answer is quite simple in this approach - does your choice alter the outcome and if the answer is no, there is no impact on the outcome; one doesn’t need to choose anything. It does not matter. By making a choice and creating further choices based on the outcome of the first choice to manage all possible outcomes is essentially what causes the spaghetti to form. When one has no control on the inputs and or the outputs to the choice; staying away is better than over thinking and complicating something that would be quite simple when seen in hindsight. 

Easier said than done. We all love the notion of being in control. 

C