More analysis can become a way to avoid deciding

15 Oct 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:54

In this short monologue, the speaker warns against the habit of endlessly gathering more opinions or data before making a decision. He introduces the concept of the "elbow point" – the moment when additional analysis no longer yields new, meaningful information. Using a product‑change scenario, he illustrates how early survey responses (e.g., the first 100‑200) provide valuable insights, but after a certain threshold (around 600 of 1,000 customers) the results plateau, making further data collection redundant. Once the elbow point is reached, any extra surveys, reports, or opinions are not genuine analysis but serve as procrastination, delaying the decision that should now be made.

Chapters

Stop saying, let's get a few more opinions, or let's postpone the decision. Instead, ask one question: Have we hit the point where more analysis has stopped giving us new information? That's what's called the elbow point. Imagine you're considering a product change and you survey some of your 1,000 customers. The first 100 responses might teach you a ton. The next 100 could still add useful information. But once you've surveyed 600 customers and the results keep looking basically the same, are another 100 or 200 responses really going to change the decision? Probably not. That's the elbow point. The additional information is no longer meaningfully changing what you already know. And once you hit that point, another survey, another report, or another round of opinions isn't analysis. It's just procrastination.