Focus on What is Knowable and Important

It is useful to think about the world in terms of a four-quadrant matrix where the horizontal dimension comprises what is knowable and unknowable and the vertical dimension comprises what is important and unimportant.

                             Knowable    Unknownable

Important

Unimportant

It should be obvious that you should not spend any time on what is unknowable and unimportant.

The trick is steering clear of the Unknowable/Important box and the Knowable/Unimportant box.

The trick is to focus on what is important and knowable. For example, it is very important to try to understand where a prospective business investment will be in ten years, even if it cannot be done with precision. It’s equally important to limit the time you invest thinking about investments to those businesses where this is actually possible. You can’t do this very often, but this is what you should be looking for.

Focus on spending your day in this quadrant. This is where meaningful decisions are made. This is where you can gain an edge over those who are unwittingly wasting time on the unknowable and the unimportant.



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Comment:  Peter Lynch - If you spent 13 seconds contemplating the macroeconomic factors affecting your investment prospect, you would have wasted 10 seconds of your time.  This time is better spent learning more of the company.