Spent 38 hours on micro saas idea research and i think i'm doing it wrong

so here's where i'm at. i've been trying to narrow down a micro saas idea for about three weeks now — that's roughly 38 hours if i'm being honest with myself — and every time i think i've found something solid, i talk myself out of it. not because the idea is bad, but because i can't figure out if the market is too small or if i'm just scared of building something people won't pay for.

i keep going in circles with the same three sources: trending threads on r/SideProject, the indie hackers feed, and a spreadsheet i've been building since march. the spreadsheet was my friend's idea and honestly it's become a bit of a mess. i found 11 ideas that seemed promising, narrowed it down to 4, and now i'm stuck at the same wall every time: is this too niche or is niche actually good for micro saas?

i keep reading that you should validate before building but nobody seems to agree on what validation actually looks like when you don't have an audience yet.

so my actual question is this: does anyone have a process for getting past the idea evaluation phase without actually building something? i keep feeling like i need to commit before i have proof, which feels backwards. how are you handling that tension with your micro saas ideas?