Optimization could be dismissed as another banal buzzword even if it wasn’t for the pernicious application of the concept to our lives.
The danger that humanity faces isn’t that algorithms and robots will rise up and seize power; the danger we face is that we will voluntarily become indistinguishable from the algorithms and robots.
Optimization could be dismissed as another banal buzzword even if it wasn’t for the pernicious application of the concept to our lives.
Everywhere from digital nomad gurus to the false prophets of productivity, we are taught how to optimize every aspect of our existence. You can find carefully scripted routines for your mornings, your sex life, and your bowel movements. There is no aspect of human life that you couldn’t be doing better.
To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum’s character, Ian Malcolm, in Jurassic Park:
We’re so busy studying how to optimize our lives, we never stopped to consider if we should optimize our lives.
The Case Against Optimization
Optimization means making something the best it can possibly be. Shouldn’t that be what we are all striving for — to live the best life we possibly can?
One problem is that “best” is subjective and optimization relies on objective processes. Most productivity hacks try and help you accomplish more in less time. But, why is that better than doing less work, at a higher level of quality within the same amount of time, or even in more time?
Another issue is that each one of us has a unique set of skills, life experiences, and environmental influences. Getting up at 4 am might be great for a young, single Silicon Valley entrepreneur. But, getting up at 4 am is beyond suboptimal when the second you get up you will wake up a house full of children.
It’s easy to spend so much time trying to make everything in your life better that you fail to take stock of what you love about your life. If you are always pushing yourself to get more work done, intake more information, eat the best diet, exercise in the best way, you are acting like a machine.
Life isn’t about being the best at everything. Life isn’t about maximizing anything. Life is about being human. It’s about making mistakes, laughing, and loving. We all hope to become better, but constantly searching for the best increases anxiety.
There is an opportunity cost to everything in life. But, our culture is biased towards evaluating only the easily calculable costs. If you read a novel instead of sending three extra proposals to prospects you cost yourself money. You can work out a formula to calculate exactly how much money you’re losing.
But, what is the cost of making a few extra dollars instead of feeding your creativity and relaxing with a book? We don’t know how to calculate that so we “optimize” by being more productive and making more money.
Optimization also has no sense of enough. We get too caught up in trying to obtain more success, earn more money, and get more stuff done that we never stop to ask how much is enough?
What Do These Practices Give You?
Many of the practices you find on business blogs and magazines are about ways to save time so that you can make more money. But, what do these practices give you?
My least favorite optimization hack is listening to podcasts at higher speeds. This is inefficient. When you listen to a podcast at a higher speed, you deny yourself the chance to ponder and process the information. We do not have a shortage of information; we have a shortage of analysis. You aren’t gaining anything from this practice.
Before you seek to optimize any area of your life, ask yourself what are you trying to make more time for? If you are trying to make more money, consider if you already have enough. What are you sacrificing in the name of faster, stronger, and better?
A Sane Alternative
Instead of optimizing your life, try living it.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…
— Henry David Thoreau from Walden
I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to be better. Self-improvement is one of the great drivers of humanity. But, we need to stop obsessing about being the best. Optimization is a fool’s game because it relies on a negative comparison. You will never measure up to either other people’s performance or to the idealized potential you see for yourself.
Gradual self-improvement relies on a positive comparison. Are you better, even marginally, today than you were yesterday?
In the journey of life, the direction you’re traveling in influences the quality of the life you lead more than the speed of your travel.
Instead of trying to optimize your life, live your life. Breathe deeply, laugh, and love. Work hard and play hard.
Automation Should Free You to Be More Human
Automation is going to change the way all of us live. But, many of us are reacting to automation by trying to out-optimize the algorithms. We react out of fear, and our reaction is making us more machine-like. But, the race to optimization is a race we cannot win.
Think about the old folktales of John Henry or Paul Bunyan. These men went head-to-head with automation. They optimized their work, and they lost. John Henry died trying to lay more track than the machine, and the giant Paul Bunyan became an exile after failing to cut down more trees than a puny man with an automatic saw.
Automation could be a gift. It could allow us to explore the things that make us uniquely human like art, curiosity, and relationships. Embrace technology that makes your life better, however you define it. Shun technology that is harmful to your humanity.
Stop optimizing your life and start living your life. It’s the only way to keep from becoming a robot.
All Rights Reserved for Jason McBride
Productivity Hub 