The Entropy of Strategy: Why We Drown in "Good Ideas"

I remember a specific night in 2020, standing on the balcony of my apartment. The city lights were overwhelming, much like the product backlog I was staring at earlier that day. I was working at a "Big Tech" company, supposedly dealing with millions of users, yet I felt paralyzed.

My problem wasn't a lack of ideas. It was an abundance of them.

In physics, entropy is the measure of disorder. In product management, entropy is the default state of your roadmap. Without external energy—without ordering—everything tends towards chaos. We often try to fight this chaos with "gut feeling" or "intuition," which, let's be honest, is often just a fancy word for our biases.

Today, I want to talk about how we fight this entropy.

1. The Illusion of Mental Clarity

There is a dangerous myth in our industry: the "Genius PM" who pulls a strategy out of thin air.

As an ISTJ turned INFJ, I've spent years battling my own desire for perfection. I used to think if I stared at a blank Notion page long enough, the answer would appear. It never did.

Keeping a SWOT analysis in your head is like trying to hold water in your hands. You might catch a few drops—"Oh, our UI is better" or "Competitor X is cheaper"—but the structural integrity of the argument slips through your fingers.

When we rely solely on mental models, we are prone to the Confirmation Bias. We only see the Strengths that validate our ego, and we ignore the Threats that scare us. We need to put it on paper (or screen) to see the scars, the ugly parts, the truth.

2. The "Heavy Tool" Trap

So, we swing to the other extreme. We open Excel. We build massive decks in PowerPoint. We create "The Matrix."

I've seen PRDs (Product Requirement Documents) that are 40 pages long. They are masterpieces of bureaucracy, but failures of communication.

• Excel: Great for data, terrible for intuition. It forces linear thinking in a non-linear world.
• Whiteboards (Miro/FigJam): Infinite canvas is great, but sometimes "infinite" is just another word for "lost." You spend more time aligning boxes than aligning your strategy.

I realized I needed something in the middle. Something that had the structure of logic but the fluidity of intuition. I needed to "organize my room," but digitally.

3. Visualizing the Battlefield

This brings me to the concept of "Low-Friction Structure."

We need tools that force us to categorize (Strength vs. Weakness) but don't punish us for iterating quickly.

For a long time, I struggled to find a tool that was simple enough to use in a coffee shop but powerful enough to present to a stakeholder. I wanted to focus on the content of the strategy, not the formatting of the slide.

This is where SWOTPal enters my workflow.

Instead of wrestling with layout, I use SWOTPal to simply dump my brain. The AI features act like a sparring partner—when I'm too optimistic, it suggests potential Weaknesses I'm ignoring. When I'm too critical (my default setting), it reminds me of the Opportunities.

It turns the abstract anxiety of "What do I do next?" into a clear, visual 2x2 grid. It’s not just about making a pretty chart; it’s about the psychological relief of seeing your problems contained within a box. It’s like tidying up your room—once the clutter is sorted, you can finally breathe.

Summary

In the movie Forrest Gump, there's that scene where the feather floats randomly in the wind. For a long time, I felt my career was that feather.

But strategy isn't about controlling the wind; it's about adjusting your sails. To do that, you need to know exactly what your boat looks like—holes and all.