[dceddia]

This post really got me thinking, because I feel exactly the same way. The sequence of events described mirrors my own life so closely it borders on creepy.

I've been falling further and further into the trap of "optimizing" lots of little things. Spending 5 hours reading Amazon reviews to buy an $11 guitar tuner. Trying to leave the house at exactly the right time to arrive at my destination on the dot. And then, becoming very frustrated when traffic does not cooperate or someone on the road is being less efficient than I want them to be.

This post made me realize that thinking this way is almost like an addiction. The more I worry about how to squeeze productivity into a day or which tasks to work on to provide the most benefit (80/20!), the more anxious I feel. And it compounds. Because the next thought through my mind is "I can fix this anxious feeling by planning things out better!"

I'm beginning to think that maybe the best way off this train is to stop trying to optimize and control for variables entirely. It's not enough to pick-and-choose, because then you're just meta-optimizing ("I'll just figure out which of these to-do items is the MOST important!") Much akin to an alcoholic having just one drink, I think any sort of optimization thinking might be enough to get the cycle started again. Maybe the only way to tame it is to avoid it entirely.