The 70% Rule: How to Decide Faster
Overthinking is procrastination wearing a productivity mask.
I’ve spent 50 minutes researching a $50 purchase.
I’ve spent 10 years avoiding a decision I could’ve made in a day.
Same pattern. Different stakes. Same cost: the time I’ll never get back.
The Pattern Is Everywhere
Comparing reviews. Reading forums. Calculating whether the $30 option was “good enough.”
I’ve agonized over email responses. Not important emails. All of them. How to phrase things. Whether to wait a few hours before sending so I didn’t seem too eager.
I’ve missed entire trades waiting for “confirmation” I couldn’t even name.
Here’s what I eventually realized: past a certain point, more thinking doesn’t improve the decision. It just delays it.
Overthinking is procrastination wearing a productivity mask.
The Three Tools
Most people try to reach certainty before they decide. That’s backwards.
Certainty doesn’t come from more thinking. It comes from having a framework that tells you when you’ve thought enough.
Here are the three tools I use:
Tool 1: The Identity Pre-Decision
The $50 purchase problem isn’t about the $50. It’s about making the same type of decision over and over again, every single time.
Here’s the unlock: decide who you are, not what to buy.
“I buy mid-tier.” Done. That’s not one decision — that’s a thousand decisions, made once.
Maybe this season you’re the mid-tier guy. Next season you’re the premium guy. Maybe after that you realize you can’t tell the difference and become the cheapest-option guy.
The point isn’t which one. The point is you’ve eliminated the deliberation entirely.
This works everywhere:
“I wake up at 5am.” No more negotiating with yourself each morning.
“I don’t trade the first 15 minutes after open.” No more debating whether this time is different.
“I eat one meal a day.” No more deciding what’s for breakfast, lunch, snacks.
One identity decision eliminates a thousand daily decisions.
That’s not rigidity. That’s leverage.
Tool 2: Map the Extremes
When I face a real decision — not the daily stuff, but the ones that actually matter — I don’t try to predict what will happen.
I map the extremes.
What’s the best case? What’s the worst case? Once I know the range, I can position myself for it.
When I co-founded a CFTC-registered trading firm, I wasn’t 100% certain. Not even close. But I asked different questions:
Does this excite me? Yes.
What do I get even if it fails? Experience. Knowledge. A story. Credibility from having tried.
Is the worst case survivable? Yes.
That was enough. The “hell yes” was there. The downside was educational, not catastrophic.
It didn’t work out. We couldn’t raise capital. Couldn’t compete with the S&P returning 20-25% annually while we charged management fees for similar returns in an alternative asset class.
But I don’t regret starting. The failure taught me more than another year of deliberation would have.
You’re not trying to predict the outcome. You’re mapping the possibilities and deciding how much exposure you want.
How do you know if it’s a “real” decision? Reversibility. The harder it is to undo, the more it deserves this process.
Tool 3: The Survivable Downside
When I notice I’m stuck, I ask one question:
What’s the downside if I just do this right now?
If the answer is survivable — and it almost always is — I have my answer. Move.
This article? I could revise it again. Tweak this section. Rewrite that paragraph. But the downside of publishing it now is... what? Someone might not love a sentence? I might think of a better example tomorrow?
That’s not a real downside. That’s perfectionism pretending to be quality control.
Product management taught me this: ship it, then refine. The market teaches you things that thinking never will. You can revise something 4 times or 100 times, but after revision 4, you’re usually just feeding the fear of shipping.
The diagnostic question cuts through all of it: Is the downside survivable?
If yes, move.
The 70% Rule
When you apply these three tools, something clicks.
You realize you don’t need 100% certainty. You don’t even need 90%.
If you’re 70% sure, decide.
70% isn’t guessing. It’s recognizing that the next 30% of certainty costs more than it’s worth.
The remaining 30%? You’ll figure it out after you move. Action creates clarity. Thinking just creates more thinking.
Here’s the decision matrix:
Below 50%: Gather more info — but set a deadline.
50-70%: If it’s reversible, decide now.
70%+: Decide. Don’t wait.
90%+: You waited too long. The opportunity may have passed.
The cost of slow decisions almost always exceeds the cost of wrong ones.
The Confirmation Trap
In trading, I’ve watched setups move without me because I was waiting for “confirmation.”
I’d have the idea. I’d see the setup. But I wasn’t fully sold, so I’d sit there. Watching. Waiting for something to confirm what I already suspected.
Here’s the problem: I couldn’t even name what I was waiting for.
If you’re waiting for confirmation, you need to identify exactly what that confirmation looks like. What specific thing would trigger action?
If you can’t name it, you’re not waiting for information. You’re stalling.
I built a strategy around this. When price breaks out and retraces back to the high we just broke, I get in. It might keep pulling back — I don’t know. But I time-box it: if this happens within 4-5 candles, I take the trade.
No endless deliberation. Clear conditions. Execute or don’t.
The setup doesn’t get better the longer you stare at it.
The Cost of Not Deciding
At work, I’ve had ideas I sat on. Things I thought we should do. I’d mention them, get lukewarm responses, and let them die.
Six months later, someone else would run with the same idea. And I’d watch it succeed — the thing I knew, that I said, that I didn’t push hard enough to make happen.
The cost of not deciding isn’t just missed opportunity. It’s watching someone else execute what you already knew.
That regret compounds. Wrong decisions fade. The thing you didn’t do haunts longer.
Let Go of Control
One more thing.
Every decision you hold onto is a decision you’re slowing down. Not just for yourself — for everyone waiting on you.
I’ve gotten better at letting go. Empowering my wife to make household decisions without my input unless she asks. Letting team members run with their ideas instead of micromanaging. Not having a strong opinion on things that don’t require my strong opinion.
Unless I have genuine conviction, I let it go. That’s not abdication. That’s leadership through empowerment instead of control.
The fastest way to decide more is to decide less — by releasing the decisions that don’t need you.
The Challenge
What decision have you been “thinking about” for more than a week?
You already know the answer. You’re just scared to commit.
Run it through the tools:
Identity: Can you make this a category decision instead of a one-time decision?
Extremes: What’s the best case? Worst case? Is the range acceptable?
Survivable Downside: What happens if you just do it right now? Can you survive that?
If the downside is survivable, you have your answer.
Decide. Move. Adjust based on what you learn.
This isn’t about speed. It’s about becoming someone who trusts their own judgment enough to move.
Lock in.