Listen, I totally get where you're coming from because I stalled for years thinking I needed to understand options trading before even touching an ETF. Turns out, that perfectionism was just fear dressed up as diligence, and I missed out on so much compounding. What finally clicked for me was setting up a recurring transfer to a low-cost index fund, like twenty bucks a week, which felt laughably small but got me in the game. You start noticing market dips without panicking because your buy-in is averaged, and that emotional calibration is worth more than any finance book. So yeah, automate the boring stuff first, then use all that saved mental energy to learn as you go, not as a prerequisite. The paralysis is real, but action, even tiny action, rewires your brain to see investing as a habit, not a high-stakes exam.