HARD THINGS, PART 2: Decisions w/Incomplete Info
The Art of Applied Visual Thinking
The official newsletter of
Applied Visual Thinking SUPERHEROES.
Vol. 7 No. 15 July 24, 2026
Superhero Truth:
You're not waiting for more information.
You're waiting for certainty that isn't coming.
WE CAN DO HARD THINGS, PART 2:
Deciding With Incomplete Information
Last time, we tackled information overload — too much, no structure. This time it's the opposite problem: not enough, and no amount of waiting is going to fix that.
Name the Hard Thing
There's a particular flavor of stuck that shows up when you have to decide something, and you don't have all the facts — and you won't, no matter how long you wait. More research, one more conversation, one more data point: it feels like progress, but it's often just a more comfortable way of not deciding.
This is hard because we've been taught that good decisions come from full information. But most real decisions — which job to take, whether to move forward on a project, how to handle a relationship — get made with maybe 60–70% of the picture. The skill isn't gathering the missing 30–40%. It's deciding well despite it.
Why Words Alone Fail
Words make this particularly hard because language is sequential — one argument, then a counter-argument, then another consideration — and sequential arguments are exhausting to hold in your head all at once. By the time you've thought through point five, you've often forgotten how point two actually felt. You end up going in circles, not because you lack discipline, but because your working memory was never built to hold a debate that long in a straight line.
The Simple Visual Fix
A visual fix here is deceptively simple: put your options side by side, not one after another. A two- or three-column comparison — even just "Option A / Option B" with a few rows underneath like what I know, what I don't know, what I'm afraid of, what excites me — turns a circular mental argument into something you can see all at once. You're not adding information. You're changing the geometry of the thinking, so your eyes can do some of the comparing your memory was straining to do.
There's a second move worth naming: drawing the cost of not deciding. Most decision paralysis treats waiting as free. It isn't. A simple timeline — where today sits, and where each option leads three months and a year out — often reveals that the "safe" choice of waiting has a cost too, it's just deferred and invisible. Seeing that cost on paper changes the emotional weight of the decision more than any pro/con list does.
None of this guarantees you'll feel certain. That's not the goal — certainty for this kind of decision usually isn't available.
That's a fundamentally different relationship to incomplete information than trying to think your way to certainty.
Try This at Home
- Take one decision you've been sitting on.
- Download the "Decide Anyway Worksheet" here.
- What are your main options under consideration (including "do nothing" if that's on the table)? Print one copy of the template per option.
- Title one of the options at the top.
- Fill in the rows for this option with:
- what I know
- what I don't know
- what scares me
- what energizes me
- At the bottom of the page, sketch a rough timeline. Include the costs, results, or impacts you would expect in 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, or any intervals that make sense for your decision if you choose this option.
- Repeat steps three through six for each option.
- Lay out all of your templates side by side. What do you notice? Which option are you drawn to now that you can see all the choices in one place?
Certainty isn't coming. A visual with options, costs, timing, and a visual gut check is.
Working on a big project that requires even more untangling than a simple side-by-side comparison? Try AVT for Project Management.
Coming up in Part 3: Next time, we'll dive into how visuals can help when explaining something you know intuitively — but can't quite put into words — feels hard.
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