In life or at work, we have a ton of information that we are assumed to digress it all. It is impossible and unnecessary. Choosing the most relevant information is much more important than obtaining it all. Because that help to maximize resource while minimizing time consumed. That means improving productivity. So, how to decide a particular information is useful or not?
How to avoid boiling the ocean is define clearly what you want to get and be consistent in applying the principle.
The Mr. Mece
The first axis: It about the level of focusing. How to define what we should focus or not: it is about the purpose and the objective. Purpose is about why you want to do. Objective is about the minimum measurable result you want to reach. After you know the information align with objective, you will know that information is relevant or not.
The second axis: It is about the reliability of information. Signal guides us to improvement, correct us to the right path. Noise misguides us to the wrong direction.
Whether the information is signal or noise depends on how big your big picture. It depends on whether your plan is long-term or short-term. For example, daily volatility of stock is a noise for value-investing investor. But it is the signal for daily arbitrager. In this case, the investor and arbitrager have equalizer in objective which is making money from stock market. So that, the stock price information is relevant to both of them. However, they are different in term of method and investing duration.
