How do I stop overthinking every small decision?

Overthinking feels like careful thinking, which is the trap — it wears the disguise of diligence while actually being anxiety on a loop. The key insight: past a point, more analysis doesn't produce better decisions, it produces more anxiety AND worse decisions (research on 'maximizers' who exhaustively optimize find they're consistently less happy than 'satisficers' who pick good-enough and move on). You're not being thorough; you're stuck in a loop that feels productive. Ways out: For decisions: 1. Match the effort to the stakes. Reversible + low-stakes (lunch, which movie) deserve a 2-minute limit, full stop — the cost of a 'wrong' lunch is trivial, but the cost of 30 minutes of agonizing is real. Save deliberation for big, irreversible calls. Ask: 'will this matter in a week?' If no, decide in 60 seconds by rule, not by feeling. 2. Set a decision deadline and a default: 'I'll choose by the count of 10, and if I can't, I pick the first option.' Structure beats the infinite loop. 3. Accept 'good enough.' There is usually no perfect choice, and hunting for it is the actual problem. Most options are fine; the agonizing costs more than any difference between them. For rumination (replaying conversations): 1. Schedule it, ironically: give worry a 15-minute 'worry window' and when it intrudes outside that, note it and defer it. Paradoxically, containing it shrinks it. 2. Distinguish problem-solving from rumination: if thinking produces an action, it's useful; if it's the same loop with no new output, it's rumination — and the exit is ACTION, not more thought. Do one small thing; motion breaks the loop that thinking feeds. 3. Interrupt physically: rumination lives in stillness. A walk, exercise, cold water, calling someone — changing your physical state changes the mental loop more reliably than trying to think your way out of overthinking (you can't; that's just more thinking). The deep reframe: overthinking is usually an attempt to control uncertainty or avoid the discomfort of being wrong. But certainty isn't available, and every choice carries some risk — accepting that is the actual cure. 'I made a reasonable decision with the information I had' is a complete and healthy thought. And the honest flag: if this is constant, exhausting, and bleeding into sleep and daily function, it may be generalized anxiety — very treatable, and talking to a professional isn't overkill for something stealing this much of your life.