How To Overcome Analysis Paralysis
The dreaded analysis paralysis
Most of us encounter analysis paralysis at one point or another during the property investing process. Whether it's, picking an investment area, putting offers in on deals, researching and hiring your team, design choices for your project or what content to share on Instagram. In today's blog we discuss what analysis paralysis is, why it occurs and how you can overcome it.
So, what is analysis paralysis?
Analysis paralysis is the inability to make a decision due to over-thinking a problem. It occurs when there are too many variables in the research that it becomes difficult for a clear choice to appear.
This result is an endless back and forth, evaluating the upsides and downsides of each option but an inability to pick one.
Property investing is particularly prone to analysis paralysis.
There is an oversupply of information out there and everyone has a different opinion on what is the best investment strategy so it’s easy to get stuck in the never ending research loop.
Once you've researched the options to the point of exhaustion, anxiety sets in and you become paralysed with fear of making the wrong decision. The inability to get to the next step creates feelings of doubt and frustration.
Sound familiar? It's ok. Now that we've identified why it occurs let's look at ways to circumvent the dreaded paralysis!
Six ways to overcome analysis paralysis:
Use stair-stepping. stair stepping is the process of making and acting on a series of smaller decision that build up to the main decision. Doing so, reduces the weight of having one big decision to make. Plus it allows you to revise the steps and improve along the way.
Don’t suffer alone, phone a friend. Have you got a friend or someone in your network who’s a good problem solver or has more experience than you? Give them a call, explain the variables and get their thoughts on which option they'd choose. Sometimes the easiest way to overcome decision overwhelm is to get it out of your head and talk about it.
Ask yourself, “by making this decision, what’s the worst that will happen?” Write down what could happen and give it a score between 1-10 with 10 being the absolute worst scenario. Face your fears and work out a solution for the worst possible scenario. You’ll be surprised that it’s actually not as bad as your thoughts made you believe.
Create a system that removes emotion. A step by step process, that is easy to follow and can be repeated by you (or your team) will reduce emotional decision making and increase action. When starting out, the decisions involved in securing your first deal can become very emotional and that emotion paralyses you. We use a deal finding system that analyses factual information and reputable sources to pre-qualify properties based on our minimum ROI requirement. There’s no emotion involved. Our system, based on facts, simply gives us a green or red light confirming if we should invest more time in that property or not.
Prioritise your decisions in line with your goals. When we have too many decisions to make, it can be hard to prioritise what is most important. Always start with the end in mind. Make a list of all the tasks requiring a decision then prioritise based on the actions that will get you closer to your end goal. Can you delegate, defer or delete any decisions that don’t align with your current goals?
Get guidance and support from a good mentor. The biggest benefit of having a mentor who is more experienced than you is that they have the knowledge to help you overcome your current challenges. They’ve been there and done it. Having their support on tap and leveraging their knowledge allows you to quickly move past analysis paralysis and start seeing results. If you don’t have a mentor, maybe it’s time to find one.
Try implementing one of these tips this week and see if it makes a difference to your decision making and overwhelm. Tell us how you got on. We’d love to hear from you.
Are you currently experiencing analysis paralysis with HMO investing?
On our virtual HMO Day, we share our key metrics when making decisions on investment areas, potential deals, designing HMOs and hiring our build team. If you want clarity on these areas of property investing then don't miss our virtual HMO Day next week where we help fill gaps in your knowledge so you can continue moving forward. Don't let your analysis paralysis drag on any longer, reserve your place here.