---
title: "I Was Overthinking Every Decision. One Habit Change Eliminated 99% of It."
description: "Overthinking kills more investment opportunities than bad markets do. A buyer's agent shares the single habit change that eliminated analysis paralysis and transformed his decision-making."
author: Joey Don
date: 2023-03-23
category: Guides
url: https://premiumrea.com.au/blog/stop-overthinking-one-habit-change-99-percent-less-burnout
tags: ["mindset", "decision making", "analysis paralysis", "investor psychology", "productivity", "mental health", "property investing"]
---

# I Was Overthinking Every Decision. One Habit Change Eliminated 99% of It.

*By Joey Don, Co-Founder & CEO at PremiumRea — 2023-03-23*

> I finally figured out why I always felt low on energy. I was thinking too much. Not analysing, just looping. Since I changed one habit, my decision-making speed and quality have transformed. Here is what I learned.

In 99 per cent of situations, you do not need to think twice.

I know that sounds reckless coming from someone whose entire profession is built on careful analysis. But stay with me, because this distinction between productive analysis and destructive overthinking is the single most important mental shift I have made in my career.

For years, I felt perpetually drained. Low energy. Slow to make decisions. Second-guessing choices that should have been straightforward. I attributed it to workload, to complexity, to the demands of managing hundreds of transactions and a growing team.

Then I realised the truth: it was not my workload draining me. It was my thinking about my workload draining me.

## The Difference Between Analysis and Rumination

Analysis is directed thinking with a clear objective. You examine data, weigh options, and reach a conclusion. It has a start point, a process, and an end point. When the analysis is complete, you act.

Rumination is undirected thinking with no objective. You replay scenarios, imagine catastrophes, rehearse conversations, and revisit decisions you have already made. It has a start point but no end point. It consumes energy without producing outcomes.

The critical difference is this: analysis leads to a decision. Rumination avoids one.

When I evaluated a property for a client, I would run the numbers, check the overlays, inspect the site, and make a recommendation. That was analysis. It took two hours. It was productive.

Then I would spend the next three days wondering whether I had missed something. Replaying the inspection in my head. Imagining scenarios where the property had hidden defects. Worrying about the client's reaction if prices softened. That was rumination. It took twenty times longer than the analysis and produced nothing.

The analysis improved the decision. The rumination degraded my capacity to make the next one.

I want to illustrate the distinction with a specific property example because it makes the concept concrete.

Last month, we identified an off-market property in Narre Warren. 650 square metres, brick veneer, three bedrooms, flat topography, sewer at rear, no overlays. The asking price was $690,000. Our comparable analysis showed similar properties had sold for $710,000 to $730,000 in the preceding quarter. The post-renovation rent estimate was $820 to $860 per week.

The analysis phase took our team approximately four hours: comparable sales review, overlay screening, rental yield modelling, renovation cost estimation, and field inspection by Steven. At the end of four hours, the conclusion was clear: the property met every criterion, the price was below market, and the numbers worked.

That was analysis. It was productive. It led to a recommendation.

What happened next, for the client, was rumination. They asked to 'think about it over the weekend.' They spent Saturday reading forum posts about Narre Warren's long-term growth prospects. They spent Sunday running the same numbers we had already run, arriving at the same conclusion. They spent Monday discussing it with friends who had no relevant expertise. They spent Tuesday calling their accountant, who said 'property can go up or down,' which is technically true and practically useless.

By Wednesday, the property had been sold to another buyer who made an unconditional offer on Friday, two hours after we presented it to our client.

Five days of rumination produced the same conclusion as four hours of analysis, except it also produced the loss of the opportunity. The client purchased a different property six weeks later, in the same suburb, for $715,000 instead of $690,000. The cost of overthinking: $25,000.

## The 90-Second Rule That Changed Everything

The habit change I made was deceptively simple: I give myself 90 seconds to feel an emotion, then I choose what to do about it.

Neuroscience research suggests that the chemical lifespan of an emotional response is approximately 90 seconds. After that, the continued feeling is self-generated. You are not responding to the stimulus any more. You are re-triggering the response through your own thinking.

So when I feel anxiety about a decision, I let it run for 90 seconds. I acknowledge it. I do not fight it or analyse it. After 90 seconds, I ask one question: is there a specific action I can take right now? If yes, I take it. If no, I move on.

This sounds trivially simple, and it is. The power is not in the technique. It is in the consistency of applying it.

Before this habit, a negative email from a vendor's solicitor would derail my morning. I would replay the email, draft mental responses, anticipate counter-arguments, and lose two hours of productive capacity. After the habit, the same email gets 90 seconds of emotional response, followed by a written reply that takes five minutes, followed by moving to the next task.

The total time expenditure dropped from two hours to six minutes. The quality of the response improved because it was crafted deliberately rather than assembled from anxious fragments.

## How This Applies to Property Investment Decisions

Every investor I work with experiences analysis paralysis at some point. They find a property that meets every criterion, the numbers work, the location is right, the inspection is clean, and then they freeze. They want to think about it. They want to sleep on it. They want to check one more thing.

In many cases, that hesitation costs them the deal. Good properties in supply-constrained suburbs do not wait. The off-market opportunity we presented last Tuesday is gone by Friday.

I am not suggesting you should buy property impulsively. Due diligence is non-negotiable. The 80 per cent land rule, overlay checks, building inspections, financial modelling: these are analysis. They produce actionable conclusions.

But once the analysis is complete and the conclusion is clear, the decision should take 90 seconds, not 90 hours. Act on the analysis. Trust the process. Move forward.

The clients who build the strongest portfolios are not the ones who think the most. They are the ones who think efficiently: thorough analysis followed by decisive action. No rumination loop between the two.

Mengmeng, the client whose property grew 25 per cent in a year, made her purchase decision in a single conversation. She trusted the analysis, asked zero follow-up questions, and signed. That is not recklessness. That is trust in a process that had already been completed.

Compare that to clients who spend six months evaluating properties, lose three deals to faster buyers, and end up purchasing something worse than the first option they analysed. The overthinking did not improve their outcome. It degraded it.

The 90-second rule also applies to how I manage my team and my business, not just property decisions.

When a tenant reports a maintenance issue at 11pm, the old me would have spent 30 minutes worrying about the cost, the disruption, and the implications. The new me notes the report, confirms that the Ongoing team will triage it within 24 hours, and returns to whatever I was doing. Total engagement: 90 seconds.

When a vendor rejects our offer, the old me would have spent a day questioning whether I should have offered higher, whether the analysis was wrong, whether the client would be disappointed. The new me acknowledges the rejection, confirms the next property on our shortlist, and moves forward. Total engagement: 90 seconds plus a five-minute phone call to the client.

The cumulative effect is profound. I estimate that the 90-second rule has recovered 15 to 20 hours per week of productive capacity that was previously consumed by rumination. That is the equivalent of adding two full working days to every week.

Those recovered hours go into activities that actually generate value: inspecting more properties, analysing more deals, meeting more clients, and mentoring my team. The quality of my work has improved not because I am thinking more, but because I am thinking about the right things and stopping when the thinking is done.

I want to acknowledge that this is easier said than done. The 90-second rule is simple to understand and difficult to practice consistently. I still catch myself ruminating. The difference is that I now catch it within minutes rather than hours, and I redirect my attention before the rumination spiral takes hold.

It is a skill, not a talent. It gets easier with practice. And the returns, in terms of energy, productivity, and decision quality, are among the best investments I have made in my own development.

## The Energy Equation Nobody Talks About

Overthinking is not just a time cost. It is an energy cost. And energy is the more precious resource.

A full day of productive analysis leaves me tired but satisfied. The fatigue is the healthy kind that comes from doing meaningful work. A full day of rumination leaves me exhausted and accomplished nothing. The fatigue is the corrosive kind that comes from burning fuel in neutral.

I started tracking my energy levels against my activity types. The pattern was unmistakable. Days with high analysis and low rumination: productive, energising, satisfying. Days with low analysis and high rumination: unproductive, draining, demoralising.

The total hours worked were similar. The output was not.

This maps directly to property investment. Investors who spend weekends scrolling realestate.com.au, bookmarking listings they never inspect, and running hypothetical scenarios on properties they never bid on are ruminating. They feel busy. They feel engaged. But they are not progressing.

Investors who spend their weekends inspecting shortlisted properties, running final numbers, and making offers are analysing. They do less scrolling and more buying. They build portfolios while others build browser bookmark collections.

The difference is not intelligence or knowledge. It is the willingness to stop thinking and start acting once the thinking has served its purpose.

## Practical Steps to Break the Overthinking Habit

First, set a decision deadline before you start analysing. 'I will have my answer by Friday at 5pm.' Without a deadline, analysis expands to fill every available hour and then bleeds into rumination.

Second, write down your criteria before you look at a single property. What must be true for you to buy? Land size, price range, yield threshold, location, overlay clearance. If a property meets every criterion, the decision is made. There is nothing left to think about.

Third, limit your information sources. You do not need to check CoreLogic, Domain, realestate.com.au, SQM Research, and three different suburb profile tools before making a decision. Pick two reliable sources, extract the data you need, and close the browser.

Fourth, practice the 90-second rule. When anxiety or doubt surfaces, acknowledge it, wait 90 seconds, then ask: is there a specific action I can take? If yes, do it. If no, move on.

I still analyse every property we purchase with the same rigour I always have. Our clients still receive the same depth of due diligence. The difference is that the analysis takes hours, not weeks. The space between analysis and action has been compressed from days to minutes.

My energy levels are higher. My decisions are better. My output is greater. And the only thing that changed was a willingness to stop thinking when the thinking was done.

In 99 per cent of situations, you do not need to think twice. You just need to think once, properly, and then act.

I want to add a personal dimension to this because I think authenticity matters more than technique.

The overthinking habit that cost me the most was not about property decisions. It was about people. I used to spend hours replaying conversations with clients, wondering whether I had said the right thing, whether they were satisfied, whether they would refer me to others.

That rumination did not improve my client relationships. It degraded them. Because when I walked into the next meeting still carrying anxiety from the previous one, I was not fully present. I was performing competence rather than demonstrating it. Clients can feel the difference.

Since adopting the 90-second rule, my client interactions have improved dramatically. Not because I say different things, but because I am fully present when I say them. The anxiety about past conversations does not contaminate current ones. Each meeting gets my full attention rather than a fraction of it.

The property implications are real. When I inspect a property now, I see the property. Not the property overlaid with anxiety about the last three properties I inspected. Not the property filtered through worry about whether the client will like it. The property, as it is, assessed on its merits.

That clarity of perception is worth more than any analytical technique I have learned. Because the best analysis in the world is useless if you cannot see clearly what you are analysing.

In 99 per cent of situations, you do not need to think twice. Think once. See clearly. Decide. Move on. The energy you save is the energy that compounds, just like the properties themselves.

## References

1. [Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight: neuroscience research on the 90-second emotional response lifespan.](#)
2. [Harvard Business Review: the cost of decision fatigue and strategies for reducing cognitive load.](https://hbr.org/)
3. [Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow: System 1 vs System 2 decision-making frameworks.](#)
4. [American Psychological Association: rumination vs productive worry, clinical and practical distinctions.](https://www.apa.org/)
5. [CoreLogic research: average days on market by suburb, illustrating speed of market transactions.](https://www.corelogic.com.au/research/)
6. [Domain buyer behaviour survey: average number of properties inspected before purchase in Melbourne.](https://www.domain.com.au/research/)
7. [REIV auction clearance data: correlation between pre-auction inspection rates and bidding outcomes.](https://reiv.com.au/)
8. [BetterUp research: relationship between decision speed and decision quality in professional contexts.](https://www.betterup.com/blog/)
9. [PremiumRea client outcome data: correlation between decision speed and portfolio growth rates.](#)
10. [Baumeister, R.F. & Tierney, J. Willpower: decision fatigue and ego depletion in high-stakes contexts.](#)

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Source: https://premiumrea.com.au/blog/stop-overthinking-one-habit-change-99-percent-less-burnout
Publisher: PremiumRea (Optima Real Estate) — Melbourne buyers agent