Contradictory proverbs: 'Look before you leap' and 'He who hesitates is lost'

Proverbs condense simple principles into a few words.  We are familiar with both of these expressions, but they seem to be saying opposite things.

'Look before you leap', describes people who act before they think things through, and often regret the results of acting hastily.  'He who hesitates is lost', describes people who think too much about things and never end up acting, i.e. analysis paralysis.

Both expressions apply at different times, but how do you know if you are acting too quickly on a decision and when should you think about thinks more?

All decisions that require action have common dimensions:

1. Time available for decision
2. Complexity of the decision

Different decisions have different times available.  When you are driving, you don't have much time to make certain decisions, i.e. if a pedestrian walks out in front of your car.  In general, most decisions are not of this variety.

The complexity of a decision depends on the number of factors involved in the decision and how difficult it is to get the information about those factors.

For example, deciding to purchase a pencil is a very simple decision.  This decision has very few dimensions, for example:

• Mechanical vs regular pencil
• Look of the pencil
• Length of the pencil

There are so few dimensions to this decision and each of the dimensions is well understood, so this decision can be made quickly.  If you make a mistake, you can just get another pencil.  If this kind of decision causes you analysis paralysis, then you are in trouble.

A more complex decision would be buying a car.  Cars come in all shapes and sizes, there are many dimensions to the decision:

• Cost
• New or used
• Number of passengers
• Carrying capacity
• Fuel economy
• Foreign or domestic
• Impact on environment
• Etc

This decision unlike the decision about the pencil is unlikely to be made quickly.  There are many dimensions to consider, which dimensions are the most relevant.  It may be impossible to get everything that you want, so compromises might have to be considered.  Also, if you make the wrong decision then you will be stuck with the decision for a long time.  In this case, look before you leap might be more appropriate.

So you need to know what your personal tendencies are.  If you feel that you need to make quick decisions then you need to take more time when faced with a complex decision.  If you make slow decisions then you need to speed up your process for simple decisions.

Speed / complexity	Simple decision	Complex decision
You decide slowly	Speed up your process	You will be ok here
You decide quickly	You will be ok here	You need to make these slower