Where this becomes difficult is when your control on outcomes is uncertain.
More specifically, it’s quite often that it looks like you probably can’t do anything to change the situation, but it’s also plausible that if you considered the problem more you would discover something. In that case knowing what amount of consideration is worth it is a hard to determine thing. Presumably there is some sort of diminishing returns curve you could use, but obviously you don’t have access to that so you have to estimate the effectiveness of your estimation.
Luckily, I think there are huge number of situations where this consideration isn’t relevant, such as being struck in traffic.
Where this becomes difficult is when your control on outcomes is uncertain.
More specifically, it’s quite often that it looks like you probably can’t do anything to change the situation, but it’s also plausible that if you considered the problem more you would discover something. In that case knowing what amount of consideration is worth it is a hard to determine thing. Presumably there is some sort of diminishing returns curve you could use, but obviously you don’t have access to that so you have to estimate the effectiveness of your estimation.
Luckily, I think there are huge number of situations where this consideration isn’t relevant, such as being struck in traffic.