Avoiding a New Year of Analysis Paralysis

By Omokolade Ogunleye

Clarke (2022) described analysis paralysis as a state of being “extraordinarily confused and overwhelmed.” The digital age changed everything about our ways of life. From how we communicate, our lifestyles, and how we conduct business. Yet there is no end in sight. One discipline that is recently becoming increasingly popular is data science and the roles associated with it. And there is a reason for that.

The stats say we generate over 2.5 quintillion bytes worth of data each day. Crazy, right? We could be doing more than that, and this will keep increasing exponentially with time. Also, you must have heard about big data—a branch of data science. 21st-century businesses are scrambling to make sense of the incredible amount of data they have at their disposal. Hence the need for data and business analysts.

Any organization that gets this phenomenon right means one key thing: better decision-making over their competitors. 

The intended audience for this article is individuals like you and me, not businesses. How do we cope with the vast amount of information available to us in today's world? Data has become so massive that it has become a challenge. The challenges vary but range from how to store enormous and ever-increasing amounts of information and derive value from it to what information is worth retaining.

Have you ever used Google search engine and it returned so many results that you were confused about which one to select? It would have been a different case if it presented you with just one or two results. 

If organizations adopt data analysis to solve the challenges of big data, what would individuals use? I am offering what I call common sense analysis. What is that, and how can you use it to prevent analysis paralysis?

First, common sense is having a reasonable judgment of a practical situation. If you do a google search of a topic, common sense demands that you select the results that best match your search. Common sense analysis is being analytical of your best available options to arrive at the soundest judgment. 

Preventing analysis paralysis as an individual sometimes requires that you know yourself well but often requires you to know what you want. For example, if you desire to learn a new art, especially one with no shortage of content online. But how do you ensure you achieve your aim without being thrown out by the vast amount of these contents, ending up gaining nothing?

The first step is identifying your strengths. How best do you learn? Are you more geared towards an auditory, visual, kinesthetic, or reading/writing learning style? Or a combination of two or more? Know the approach that best suits you. Now, we can filter content to meet your best learning style. The second step is testing to see which among the filtered contents are quality ones that would help you master the art.

All those steps are vital in your journey to prevent analysis paralysis this new year. Yet one last step critical to success is to be laser-focused. The first two steps aid your concentration on the best resources you need to reach your desired goal. However, you require discipline to achieve the third step, which is up to you.