Money Minded

Overcoming analysis paralysis: how to convert information into results

• Terry Condon

Share episode

Ask us a question or suggest a topic 🤙

In this episode of the Wealth Time Freedom Show, hosts Terry and Ryan discuss the challenge of analysis paralysis in the personal finance space and how tools can serve as an antidote. They define what constitutes a tool, emphasising its role in converting information into actionable insights and results. They explore various examples, such as spreadsheets and digital apps, highlighting their power to simplify complex decisions and facilitate progress. The discussion also touches on the importance of feedback loops and skill acquisition in enhancing financial management. 

00:21 The Curse of analysis paralysis

01:40 Defining and utilising Tools

03:55 The impact of technology: From iPhone to Apple watch

05:22 Navigating the world with tools

09:17 finding and Using effective Tools

11:35 Practical applications and feedback Loops

17:20 Wrapping up: overcoming analysis paralysis

Find out your financial skill score
Do you have the money skills to fund your goals? Take the 4 minute quiz here
🔗 https://financialskill.scoreapp.com/

Join our podcast community
Get live updates, talk shop with us and meet like minded legends in our digital treehouse. Click here to get access now.
🔗 https://www.facebook.com/groups/4609737389252111

Other links 👇

Money mentorship:
Click here to start putting what you've been learning into practice.
🔗 https://www.cashflowco.com.au/mentorship

Tex:

Welcome back to the Wealth Time Freedom Show. I'm back here with Ryan. Welcome back, mate.

Ryan:

mate. Good to see ya.

Tex:

been a while. We haven't recorded together for months, I reckon.

Ryan:

haven't

Tex:

straight away and release them, so it's actually been a few months. We haven't been able to sync calendars. We've got heaps of stuff going on, so we're actually here on a Sunday, and I've pissed at you to get on, so thank you. Yes it's something that we've been doing for years, but we just haven't really discussed, but I think it is really important because the pattern that we notice in the personal finance space is a propensity to get stuck in information gathering mode. We talk about it a bit. Really just, there's so much information that you could consume. And if you are learning from a place of fear, then it's easy for you to get stuck in information gathering mode cause you never want to make a mistake.

Ryan:

Yeah. If we think about What the curse is, I would say you'll probably call it analysis paralysis. And I would argue that tools tend to be the antidote to analysis paralysis, because usually the analysis is an overgathering of information and just stuffing your face with new data, new ideas, different books, podcasts, things like this. Whereas tools kind of force you into action. They make you do something. is a crucial step in bridging between that and actually getting results.

Tex:

Yeah. Either make you do or help you do the thing. And I think the other thing, how would you know that you're stuck in information gathering and analysis paralysis is that you are still feeling your way through the problem.

Ryan:

so I

Tex:

And so I don't feel like I can do this yet. If you find yourself

Ryan:

that

Tex:

that kind of language pattern and you just watch your own behavior and you are of going around and around in circles with this then. I think you could say you're stuck in that information gathering mode and you might need a tool. and the benefit of tool, we should really define what it is when we say tool. Cause we can, it's a pretty broad word.

Ryan:

say

Tex:

Yeah. So I think

Ryan:

a

Tex:

tool is anything that helps you make better sense of information and convert that information into insight. You can use. To get into action, to improve your ability to get a specific result that you want. In

Ryan:

other

Tex:

other words, a tool is like a technology is a tool. Any of those things that kind of speed up that process. Agree? Yeah,

Ryan:

process. Agree? Ignorantly, or like we haven't been as aware as what we are now of the fact that we have been so obsessed with building tools uh, because we're, you know, if I think about, there's probably been a bunch of spreadsheets made that you've looked at and thought, yep, Ryan's being weird here, but I can see how this is useful and vice versa, I've watched what you've done with, spending a lot of time kind of understanding how a lot of different coaches, facilitators help influence people and help them organize their thinking and get them into action around the vision that they have and the goals they have. And they're all just different ways of, you know, a line of questioning could be a tool. That you use, you it's a thought tool that helps you organize it and then gets you passed out into action. Other things like a spreadsheet, it's, I wouldn't say it's it's always everyone's favorite tool, but it's something that allows you to organize information, make sense of it, put things in, have it spit something out and tell you something that helps you then make a decision. And so it's a really powerful decision tool sometimes.

Tex:

And just to cut into what you're saying there, what that, what you just said there was like helps you

Ryan:

you

Tex:

out. And then do something better. So that is, we talked about what a tool is, helps you get a result, something, anything that helps you get a result, but what does it do? It helps you resolve doubt because the doubt's the thing that's stopping you and slowing you down and then actually do the action. It could do one or any of those things. A tool could just be resolving of the doubt that helps you actually start taking action through something else, but could also actually be the thing that helps you take the action.

Ryan:

be the thing that helps you take the action. Does that make sense? So the most obvious one for

Tex:

obvious one for me, I was thinking more broadly about this was how much the iPhone changed everything. I think we're all aware that the internet was a thing when it came along, the 2000 bubble dot com sort of,

Ryan:

had MSN on the

Tex:

I had an email and a hotmail and all those things. But I really didn't know what the internet was until after the iPhone happened. there is this really famous quote from Robert Buckminster Fuller is the guy's name. And he says, if you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don't try to teach them a new way of thinking, give them a tool. And through that,

Ryan:

they'll

Tex:

pick up a new way of thinking. And I reckon the iPhone's a fantastic example of that. We really didn't know how to act on

Ryan:

the

Tex:

new opportunity that was the internet. Until we had the iPhone.

Ryan:

Because

Tex:

it started this whole

Ryan:

new

Tex:

thing. Everyone's can access it every day. We're interacting with it more often. There's these things called apps, the apps themselves, the tools. And so it's there's a tool that's helping us with more tools that help us do things. And you go at the start, it was just like web 1. 0, where it was just like, Hey, that's where you go to get information.

Ryan:

But,

Tex:

All right, you're just going to get information. But now, Web 2. 0, it's actually where you can go to give information as well. And so it's evolved in that sense as a tool. And now we're moving into Web 3. 0, where we're doing a lot more than just get and give information share information. We're actually making things happen

Ryan:

think

Tex:

the internet, building new worlds if you like.

Ryan:

to everybody.

Tex:

it's, I think that's probably the most relatable example to everybody. But in, in terms of a tool in my own life,

Ryan:

a pretty epic

Tex:

don't know, I reckon the Apple Watch has been a pretty epic tool.

Ryan:

Think about the watch in the first instance. If you go trace the watch back, you would argue that the clock is a pretty powerful tool.

Tex:

Yeah,

Ryan:

What did people do before the clock? Okay. Like how much that changes the way you organize your day, what time you have to be somewhere, or, even back in those days, a calendar, how you organize your crop around, seasons and those types of things. But like, when you look at a day, how did you, how'd you know where to be? What time? So

Tex:

so they had pretty sophisticated systems actually.

Ryan:

Oh. They

Tex:

They used to tell stories. So a lot of the religious stories are actually story stories about the stars on the moon and the seasons. And

Ryan:

a

Tex:

a lot of people picked them up and turned'em into religions, but but

Ryan:

that's a

Tex:

a whole, that's a whole other thing. But they had other ways of navigating. There's an awesome book called Wayfinders that talks about how. There's all these different civilizations that had all these very sophisticated ways of navigating the world and getting what they wanted and organizing themselves just by observing nature and little codes and cues they picked up. So they would know, for example, that if there's particular school of fish that are moving this direction at this time, it means this just real different. Stuff like we don't pay attention anywhere near as close as they did. Let's put it that way.

Ryan:

Well, I'm still going to argue that it got easier to tell what time of day it was when

Tex:

Oh, yeah

Ryan:

watch was created. Surely we, surely things got easier.

Tex:

Mate, do you know how they used to navigate these guys without a compass?

Ryan:

guys without a compass? The smell? No. No.

Tex:

No,

Ryan:

The

Tex:

they used to get

Ryan:

No. I used

Tex:

they used to get a young man That sit his testes on the bottom of the boat and feel the currents

Ryan:

Oh Jesus.

Tex:

It's a true story look it up

Ryan:

would know any which way.

Tex:

But yes, no, you're right it's gotten a lot easier and a lot less invasive

Ryan:

And these are perfect examples of tools, right? Help you think differently because you organize your thoughts, organize your actions, organize your day that little bit different. And if I bring it back to personal finance It's always worth looking around and thinking about what tools are you using right now to organize your finance, organize your thinking I know we probably do this a lot in because we have a business, you're always looking at different tools that can help you do more with less and obviously software has been the amazing evolution in the last decade, really in the last 20 years, more so accessible in the last decade using all the productivity tools, all these different things that you can kind of, help you do more with less. and organize yourself around the most important things that you should be doing to get the result you want. And I know for me, a lot of the skills that I've developed over time in finance and business, in sport has come off the back of actually learning how to use specific tools. And probably the next evolution for me has been the creation of tools. How much more you go to that next level when you start building out and figuring out how things work, connecting the dots, inputs, outputs, what happens in between, how that process really leads to your own understanding of how things work. so I know for me, it's been massive in finance. There's been some pretty hectic spreadsheets over the years. It's made sense of market returns over time and, put it a hundred grand back then, and what would happen now with inflation and all these crazy things. But even more so probably in the last couple of years building tools for our clients. And it's amazing how much more you do just pay attention to how things are working and then try to influence how those things are working when you build tools.

Tex:

You have to think about different contexts and how different contexts work or how to make it work for different contexts more correctly when you're doing that. It probably points to the question of where do you find good tools? And

Ryan:

I

Tex:

I think it should come, usually, the best tools are going to be found from an expert. And it's interesting because Software development has started to get democratized and that's

Ryan:

good

Tex:

And it's bad. But what's interesting to me is how this space is changing now in the personal finance space. So we built a bunch of our tools from the mentorship and within the program

Ryan:

using

Tex:

third party software. Things like firstly Excel and then moving into Google Sheets and then working with developers with scripts in the background and those sort of things, making them as sophisticated as possible,

Ryan:

proving

Tex:

them there.

Ryan:

And

Tex:

during that time, a lot of the software that is built on apps has been built by people with specialized knowledge for building apps. And it's probably why the apps sucked. They're mostly built by engineers who think a certain way. That doesn't necessarily apply more broadly and widely because it's not coming from an expertise of doing the thing.

Ryan:

Yeah there has been some good tools.

Tex:

The speeds of Google.

Ryan:

Moneybrand was one of the first tools I picked up. Doesn't exist anymore. I know Westpac bought it and, pulled it apart and shut it down. But it was a fantastic tool. It was the first one in finance that I picked up and went, holy shit, of a sudden

Tex:

Mm.

Ryan:

Fun. addictive. It feels like a game that I'm playing. I want the scoreboard to paint a better picture. I thought that was an absolute pearler. Disappointingly, it got shut down the ones since have been built by developers and haven't built for the end customer, really.

Tex:

Yeah.

Ryan:

able to make sense of.

Tex:

Yeah, it's a broad brush statement, but broadly that's how I've seen it. Like I've

Ryan:

downloaded a lot

Tex:

downloaded a lot of them and, even talking to guys, I was talking to one of our guys, Mitch, the other day.

Ryan:

and he

Tex:

And he was saying I spent months trying to work out this one app and he's just it actually just made my life just

Ryan:

way

Tex:

more complex. I didn't know where things were going. I didn't, I was trying to figure out. How it worked for longer than I could actually make it work.

Ryan:

Yeah

Tex:

so

Ryan:

What's the sign

Tex:

if that's the case, if you're using a tool and it's actually sapping your time and it's making harder to get a result, maybe you need to look for another tool. So let's come up with a few

Ryan:

markers

Tex:

for a tool that's working really well. I've got a couple here and I want you to add to them. So obviously we've already talked about as it helps you resolve doubt. It's going to help you get into action and it should help you get into action a lot easier and faster

Ryan:

to

Tex:

get that result.

Ryan:

Yeah, I'd probably just add that. a really good tool what you see as possible and what is actually possible. You use the iPhone before as an example of the smartphone more generally. If you have an iPhone or any kind of smartphone, you see that you can access more information more readily. You can connect with more people. You can communicate more easily, obviously. There's all these things that allow you to do more. And achieve more. so I'd probably say that a really good tool in whatever domain that is, a phone's really a general one specialized tools in, certain areas of your life. Health tools, wealth tools learning tools. a really good one just helps you go, holy shit, I can actually be a lot more than. What I was before without that tool.

Tex:

I reckon a really good example of this is I was talking to Katie who's in our program at the moment and uh, she's an accountant and she was just laughing about how she was like, Oh, I was struggling with this for so long between myself and her partner. She's I thought, you know, I'm going to count that I should be able to do this. I should be able to make this whole thing work. And going through the process of going from the start using a bunch of the suite, let's call it a suite of tools, showed her what she was missing. And then coming back into the actual financial tools, she better able to be able to translate.

Ryan:

tools, she was

Tex:

What they wanted to accomplish and how they could do it.

Ryan:

What they wanted to

Tex:

And she was like, what now? Because it's only been a 12 month time frame, but we've accomplished all the stuff we set out to

Ryan:

all the

Tex:

do. And I was like we do it again. We blow it up again.

Ryan:

blow it up again.

Tex:

And I think that's a really good example, right? Like it shows you what you're missing.

Ryan:

For

Tex:

Um,

Ryan:

Yeah, a hundred percent. And what I'd probably add to that is the tool then has to be related to, or it should make you more skillful. I think we touched on it before, but around often when you're learning a tool, you're developing new skills as a byproduct is getting you into action. Then you're creating these feedback loops that increases your velocity of learning. And so I think it's a good sign should be that you feel more skilled and more capable as a result of it as well.

Tex:

Yeah, I reckon that's really important one. Feedback loop. Does it have a feedback loop in it? How tight is the feedback loop?

Ryan:

high

Tex:

And how actionable is it?

Ryan:

And

Tex:

that feedback loop. Because if you're building your awareness,

Ryan:

awareness

Tex:

over time and it's helping you think more clearly to do more, then the outcomes of that doing should also help you figure out

Ryan:

has

Tex:

how effective that doing has been. And the tighter that loop, the faster you can keep course correcting. I used that word before, wayfinding, but really, finance is a wayfinding process. And it's actually so interesting to me to watch people go through and systematically build the skills that we talk about. We talk about future authoring, we talk about monitoring vitals, we talk about,

Ryan:

like

Tex:

Cash flow forecasting.

Ryan:

That's

Tex:

the one where I think things are locked. I talked about this with Mitch on an episode recently about how they actually made their trip happen around Australia. And it was actually the forecasting process

Ryan:

where it

Tex:

it was like I had to come up against the reality that I was emotionally forecasting and Realize there was no constraint

Ryan:

to

Tex:

us doing it. It was actually just a feeling that I was stuck on. And then I had to explore why I was letting that feeling stop me instead of the reality. Cause reality was I didn't have a constraint. And so it's interesting. Yeah. Cause you like you said before, it helps you see things in new ways. And

Ryan:

before. It helps you

Tex:

I think the way people like the configuration of money, like if I was to observe a pattern

Ryan:

of money, like if I

Tex:

of people that go through and do really well in our pathway,

Ryan:

in our

Tex:

It's where they look at what's really important to them and they start to tighten those feedback loops and then they start to observe the way their money's configured and they say, Is the way my money's configured conducive to what I want? And if the answer is no, what other configurations might work? And it's the process of forecasting through that tool that allows people to look at different ways things can be accomplished and they actually give themselves permission to do those things. That, that part of it there is where people see what's possible, see what they couldn't see before.

Ryan:

see

Tex:

And then they have the skills and confidence to be able to do it because they've been making decisions with their money all the way along.

Ryan:

one

Tex:

So

Ryan:

see.

Tex:

yeah, it's an interesting one to see really.

Ryan:

I know you're talking about money there. Another interesting one is, allocation of time, allocation of money they've got so many similarities. There's a big difference between putting things in your calendar, booking appointments, or, booking a meeting, whatever that might be, versus constructing a calendar that suits you. do

Tex:

Mm,

Ryan:

we'll go, let's just set, let's just set set up a week, about three months out, and go, in that time of day, this is when we do this, we're doing that then, we're preserving time for that, we're protecting time over there for that too, being able to design that firstly, to be able to get as much out of it as possible based off how we work best. And then being able to over time shape shift it. And then at the end of each week, being able to reflect on the week to see what got done. And how good we felt about the work we were doing and how our energy levels are that kind of feedback loop at the end of a busy week. It allows you to go, all right, there's something needs to change or something's working. And that's that way finding that you're talking about. It's the same thing is true for money. It's not just spending. It's not just earning. It's how you design what a good month looks like ahead of time. It's how

Tex:

mm,

Ryan:

loop did I enjoy my money? Did I not? Did I invest as much as I wanted to? Am I finding the goals that I wanted to, so many things are so true. I would say. If you don't want to go hard on the money side just yet, start with your calendar.

Tex:

mm,

Ryan:

Up in there, three months out. Design an ideal week of when you do your best work. Then start reflecting at the end of each week about how it went. And if you find there's positive results there, I guarantee you would find the same thing to be true when it comes to money with those routines.

Tex:

yeah. It's all allocation and consumption of resources. It's all the same thing.

Ryan:

And then observing what's working and what's not working.

Tex:

So let's wrap this up, mate. I want to keep this one pretty quick. Key point here is if you find yourself stuck in

Ryan:

this

Tex:

analysis paralysis, information gathering mode, and you're going on based on how you feel, and that, just, that's Continuing to be the case, Then you need to start looking for tools.

Ryan:

Best

Tex:

place to start looking for tools

Ryan:

It's for

Tex:

for people who have built tools based on those experiences. And you know, a tool is going to work. If it helps you convert your insight into action, makes that doing easier skills app acquisition shows you what you're missing, and it saves you time and or money in the process to be able to do so. If you haven't already done that, go looking find tools that work for you or find pathways that can get you access to those tools.

Ryan:

Yeah, and I'd almost say a precursor to finding those tools is look at your life and go, where do you feel like there's deficiencies or where do you want to build capability and then go, who are those thought leaders? And if money is the focus, if obviously you're listening to this podcast and it might be, then we are running a workshop, Terry, aren't we? It's on each month at the moment, where you're jumping on there and you're sharing the most important tools that we've found when it comes to money. And this has obviously been an obsession of ours for the last five years, or maybe even longer. And that's where we kind of share exactly what we've learned. Importantly the tools that we've found that really move the needle when it comes to getting results on this pathway and getting into action, of course.

Tex:

Yeah, Yeah, so we'll talk through the actual, it might have even referenced in this episode, I'm not sure, but there are five routines That we do, and so we go through in detail what those five routines are

Ryan:

how

Tex:

how they work, and then the actual tool The actual physical tool or physical digital tool we use to operationalize that and help people build up those skills really quickly. If you are curious about that and you've heard about the money mapping method and you want to know how these couples are doing these things that's the best place to go. So if you're interested in that, there is a link

Ryan:

in

Tex:

the description of this episode. Hit that link and you can jump into the next next one

Ryan:

next Good stuff. And of course, if you're enjoying this episode,

Tex:

don't forget to give us a review. And of course that always helps us go out and get bigger and better guests and we'll see you in the next one. Thanks for coming, mate

Ryan:

see you soon.

People on this episode