Readers of this column are frequently reminded to ignore the noise, stick to the long-term plan and let patience do the heavy lifting. How, then, should one think about an investment strategy? Is there ever a good time to make a change? And what sort of changes should investors be making?

The New York Times recently ran an analysis showing that players who selected hard mode in Wordle were more successful than those who didn’t. The argument was that constraints improve decision-making and having too much flexibility often makes us less efficient, not more.

For those who don’t know Wordle, you are given five chances to guess a five-letter word. Each guess must be a valid English word. Hard mode forces you to retain information from…