Focus Areas → Overthinking

Useful thinking narrows the options. Overthinking multiplies them, and keeps a question open long after new information has stopped arriving. It feels productive because it is effortful, which is exactly what makes it hard to stop.

Interrupting the loop is rarely a matter of thinking better. It usually means changing the conditions: setting a limit on the decision, moving the body, writing the thought down so it stops being rehearsed, or accepting a good-enough answer on purpose.