# Stop, FLOP, or Know * **Stop**: When you *stop* gathering useful information * **FLOP**: When you First Lose an Opportunity. * **Know**: When you have gathered a piece of crucial information and you *know* it is time to act. We can think of Stop, FLOP or Know as red flags indicating we are at a critical point of our time to decide vs. usefulness of information graph:  We can turn these red flags into *action triggers*. ### 1. STOP *Act* when you have stopped gathering useful information. A fantastic (unpublished) study done by Paul Slovic on [Prediction Quality vs Amount of Information in Horse Racing](Prediction%20Quality%20vs%20Amount%20of%20Information%20in%20Horse%20Racing.md) highlights how the usefulness of new information tends to decline after reaching a certain point. Beyond a certain minimal amount of information, additional information only feeds [Confirmation Bias](Confirmation%20Bias.md) (not to mention the considerable cost of *delay* and *acquiring* information). In the diagram above we can envision that at the critical point (peak) we have already come to an initial decision (we are leaning one way or the other). At this point as we gather more information two things are likely to happen: 1. Information that *conflicts* with the original assessment or conclusion will be conveniently ignored or dismissed. 2. Information that confirms the original decision makes us increasingly *confident/certain* that our decision was correct. #### 1.1 Signs to STOP Now, what are the big signs that you have stopped gathering useful information? * You are googling things in a panic to learn more * You are asking people for advice who are more than one step removed or don't have experience solving these problems * You are going over the same information or same argument more than once When any of the above points have been hit, you have gathered all of the information that will be useful in making the decision and it is finally time to decide. ### 2. FLOP FLOP stands for **First Lost Opportunity**. A red flag that it is time to act with the information that you have is when you are starting to *lose opportunities*. Remember, the goal of ALAP is to preserve [optionality](optionality). When options start diminishing you know it is time to act. ### 3. KNOW Sometimes we gather a crucial piece of information that let's us *know* what we need to do. At this point we must act. #### 4. Avoid spinning out between ASAP and ALAP To avoid spinning out in no man's land (/posts/between [ASAP and ALAP](ASAP%20and%20ALAP.md)) we can do the following: * **Identify** what information you need to gather and **act** as soon as you are repeating yourself or getting away from primary sources of information. * **Identify** what opportunities you will lose by waiting and **act** as soon as one is gone. * **Identify** what information, if gathered, would change the course of everything and bring your clarity. --- tags: #decision-making #heuristics links: [Decision by Design MOC](Decision%20by%20Design%20MOC.md) [When-to-Decide](When-to-Decide.md) created: 2020-11-25 modified: 2020-11-25