I really enjoyed the 3 hours long podcast between Tim Ferriss & Derek Sivers.
I love to optimize things in my life—work flow, holidays, health, etc. I would read and have a plan for everything. And I am sorta proud of that label.
But sometimes it becomes really tiring, or projects are implemented really slowly, or relationships are strained because I need everything to be “optimized”.
So when I hear about them talking about the unoptimized life, it piqued my interest.
Living the unoptimized life
In a world obsessed with constant improvement, it can be refreshing to embrace a less-structured, more spontaneous approach.
Because as you go through life, there’ll be new information from moment to moment that helps you make the best decision for that moment, not what you thought would be the best decision earlier when you made plans, which was a prediction.
Experience serendipity, and find joy in the unexpected.
Drawing the line
We (more a reminder for myself) don’t have to optimize everything in life.
Find out where to draw the line: romantic relationship, job, family?
We can’t have perfect for everything. It’s okay to have some things to be simply good enough.
When is it worth optimizing?
To Derek, if you have fun optimizing, then it’s worth it.
Otherwise, to be able to say “good enough” is a superpower.
The problem with -isms
For a lot of people, it’s all or nothing.
But the world is seldom black and white.
For example, a reader found one thing he didn’t liked about Tim Ferriss’ book and declared everything to be thrash.
We need to have the ability to take ideas piecemeal.
Which means ideally you should be open to taking good ideas from people you don’t like, and the people you do like admitting that some of the things they say, you’re not going to adopt that.
If you want to tune in to this conversation, the link to the show here: