Where is the limit of thinking before acting?

Question

Sometimes, reflections are necessary to lead successful actions such as designing a proper architecture for a technological system. But how one can find the limit between unnecessary and useful thinking ?

I can think of inquiry, proper research and well defined objectives as means to be efficient at thinking, but do you know well rounded techniques or maybe widely used methodologies among efficient people ?

Answer 1

As weronika pointed out, I found that HLGEM came up with an answer on the other related question, which could have been a good one on this topic. It's something along the line of :

• Case 1. It's a one time project and you already know how it can be done (albeit slowly) :

just get it done.

• Case 2. Your project will be repeated :

decide case-by case which is better. You should probably spend some time to get a decent method in most repeateble processes, but it may include some "just get it done" iterations until you find what is best. It is hard to find the best method the first time you try to do almost anything.