Due Diligence - Time Investment for Investing Decisions

I've heard analyst Sven Carlin on youtube say it's not unusual for investors to have an hour long meeting with a financial advisor before handing over all their money they've spent a life time accruing.  It will be the most expensive hour of their life.   Since I made the firm decision to take charge of my own finances instead of paying someone else, I have to trade in serious chunks of my gaming time to burn brain cells for investment research, suss out risk and act on a decision, monitor and baby that decision and make more follow-on investment decisions.

How much due diligence is practically sufficient for investing decisions? Instinctively I sense one ought to err on the side of excess rather than skimp but what is that in terms of actual hours?  I've definitely know in my heart of hearts I've been grossly negligent.

 To motivate/shame myself into doing more, I started my list of "10 Ancillary Game Related Activities I've Spent more Time On than Actual Investing."  (I had to choose "Ancillary Activities" since I've played dozens of games for which any single playthrough or maybe just even inventory management in a single RPG would have wildly wildly exceeded my time investing. Sigh.)

1. Browsing the Steam Catalog esp. during Steam Sales- this is a form of true relaxation.
2. Modding Bethesda VR Games - Probably even one category- texture mods alone or just lighting/weather mods exceeds all my time investing. Did I tell you my 4K textures are simply glorious!!!  Weapons, tree bark, dragon skin, lady skin- you name it, I've enhanced it.
3. Performance Tuning Bethesda Games- Fallout 4 VR you are the worst time suck ever invented!
4. GPU/CPU/hardware selection- I've spent more time comparing TFLOP Specs than looking at P/E ratios.
5. Watching lore videos - to be fair, I do this while washing dishes or folding laundry.

At #5, I realized to my the horror that I could narrow my time neglect on investments even further.

8 Activities I've Spent more Time and Energy than on Any Single Investment Decision

1. Selecting PS4 Pro vs Xbox One X. PS4 Pro of course, you can't beat PS4 exclusive games.
2. Trying to get a complete set of Griffin School Witcher Gear. 
3. Figuring out which spouse to marry in Skyrim VR. Didn't end up marrying after all.
4. Horse care in Red Dead Redemption 2. For sure I've spent more time trying to spawn a Turkoman than any index fund selection.
5. Selecting and watching thermal paste videos, Kryonaut of course. Pea method is totally fine.
6. Overclocking just RAM and resetting BIOS. Overclocking is a unique kind of fun you can't get anywhere else!
7. Crop selection in Stardew Valley- Go for pumpkins! Pumpkin soup gives you 2 luck and 2 defense, a fantastic combo buff for Skull Cavern.
8. Remapping HOTAS X for Elite Dangerous

I could go on past 100.  To think I spent less time in selecting a robo-investing firm than my last GPU or console purchase should cause me some alarm.  Egads, I've probably spent more time agonizing over cheese selection than on some on my muni fund picks. But my grocery store sells artisan cheese chunks around $10, so it really is a serious decision impacting our family's entire week.  How can I make investing as fun as gaming, food shopping, or literally anything else I do in life....

So How Much Energy and Time Is Adequate for An Investment Decision?

I don't want to spend all my free time agonizing over investment decisions but I don't want to jeopardize retirement by my past slipshod approach.   Certainly the due diligence should correlate positively to the actual amount invested and risk involved.  To simplify, I merge both into one  and decide the hours should be some portion of how much money you stand to lose compared to how long it took you to save it.  If one stands to lose $1000 and if it takes 100 hours to save $1000(chosen for easy math), for 10%, 10 hours would not be so terrible. I just arbitrarily chose 10% but need to figure out a good minimum floor.  5% or 5 hours? Too bad such formulas aren't wholly useful but it's a way I use to convince myself that investment decisions that are taking longer to make should not be rushed.

Here are a few investment decisions I've been grappling with lately:

• Overall investment strategy and allocation - this impacts all the money so spending months even a year is warranted.
• Optimum place to park money while making decisions- While this impacts a big chunk of my stash, cash equivalents are considered relatively safe. I felt okay spending 4 hours choosing among treasury funds and ultrashort bonds.
• Whether or not to keep robo-investing and liquidate?  This one is difficult to determine since it's currently about underperformance and hypothetical earnings lost.
• Fund Selection - Selection of a specific funds in a chosen allocation bucket depends on the risk category where the above rule has been useful. Selecting a lower risk muni fund takes less than an hour.
• Crypto- I'm gambling with $200 for fun and education so even though this is through-the-roof risk part of my entire holdings, I spent a few enjoyable hours selecting coins.

I like many humans spend reams of energy on hugely inconsequential choices on a daily basis that could be rerouted to investment learning and decision making. I should not begrudge the hours needed to evaluate risk and understand the investment- I need to commit to invest in investment learning. Further more, decision making muscle is a limited resource that wears down as the day progresses, I need to prioritize investment decisions earlier in the day.  My worn out late night decision making muscles are only good for choosing a pajama set, late night snacks, and whether or not to go mining or fishing in Stardew Valley.