I’m not sure about you, but I think I’ve had enough of trying to optimize everything.
A few days ago I saw one post on LinkedIn giving me 8 Simple Ways to Start a Business. I let out a sigh. Then less than a minute later, another post, 6 Simple Steps to Improve My Life. I thought my life was alright, but apparently I was missing steps 3 and 5. I must do better. It was at that moment where I’d probably hit my limit for optimization for the day. It was 8.50am.
And it’s not just me. You may have seen recently that Diary of a CEO Host Steven Bartlett mentioned on one of his podcast episodes that a few glasses of wine had “ruined three days” of his life, because of the knock-on effect on his sleep, his gym routine, and his podcasting. Are we still doing #ThoughtsandPrayers? If so, I’ll send out a hashtag to him.
For the record, I quite like the guy, but I’m sure, like most of us now, he tracked all of the increased stress, cortisol levels and non gym activity on whatever wearables he was promoting at the time, which probably shows us where we’re at. (The wellness industry is projected to reach $9.8 Trillion by 2029.)
Interestingly, people really kicked off about it! Not necessarily because he was exaggerating, I’m in my mid-40s, I know full well the elongated impact of a heavy night on the sauce, but because it landed as a perfect and slightly ridiculous representation of taking optimization too far and for many it became the straw (in the wine?) that broke the camel’s back.
The pressure we put on ourselves to track our sleep, food, exercise, water consumption, stress, be up to date with the latest whatever and so much more has just all gone a bit too far and we risk losing some of the essence of just enjoying life.
Not only can the constant pressure to optimize be exhausting in our personal lives, but it can also get in the way of producing magic in our professional ones, as we continue to seek optimal outcomes and perfect endings. We probably need reminding that good enough can be just as good, if not better, than an optimized finished article.
Why Sometimes Unoptimized Is Just Better
We’ve all been there. The delayed launch of a product, the slow amendment to a process. When organisations are looking for more pace, it generally isn’t writing things quicker, it’s actually can we not include 75 people in the decision-making process, please.
There’s a proper body of research behind why the unfinished, unoptimized version can often outperform the polished one.
Take the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert A. Simon. Way back in 1947, he looked at how people make choices and later in 1956 introduced a concept called “Satisficing,” a word he literally made up by blending satisfy and suffice. Let’s see how that sounds after three glasses of wine.
Simon argued that trying to find the absolute ‘optimal’ outcome in life or business is a fool’s errand because none of us have unlimited time or brainpower. In 2002, psychologists led by Professor of Social Theory and Social Action Barry Schwartz built upon Herbert Simon’s satisficing theory by distinguishing between “Maximizers” and “Satisficers” in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The research indicated that while maximizers strive for the best outcomes, they often experience higher levels of regret and stress compared to satisficers, who settle for “good enough”.
Maximisers are the people tracking everything and spending three hours reading reviews to find the objectively perfect shirt (guilty). In work they’re super useful for regulatory and risk issues, finding all the nooks and crannies and completing everything with polish. However, when pace is required, Satisficers look for the first option that meets their baseline criteria of “good enough.” The moment they find it, they hit send and move on.
The researchers found that Maximisers spend a staggering amount of time, energy, and mental bandwidth trying to squeeze out that final, perfect result. Ironically, the data showed they end up with significantly higher levels of stress, depression, and severe regret. They essentially squeeze the fun juice right out of their work.
Meanwhile, the “Satisficers”, the unoptimized crowd, make decisions rapidly, maintain momentum, and stay significantly happier despite not always hitting the highest of highs.
How to Unoptimize (and be okay with it)
Lowering the bar really isn’t an option here but being a bit more unoptimized (because I don’t think any of us can stand the term ‘satisficer’ any longer) means being honest about our own perfectionism and where the joy, fun and quality in the system we’re in has deteriorated because of it being too optimized.
Does that thing you’re doing really need another layer of sign-off anymore? Can something within the system be less optimized so it gets out to stakeholders, customers or clients quicker?
That email you’ve spent an hour on already, you can probably just send it now. I’m sure everything will be fine. Typos are trendy now and a new form of reassurance that a human, not AI, wrote the email anyway.
If cutting a whole layer of approval feels like too big a leap, start smaller. Give yourself a genuine stopping rule before you start; two passes on the document, one round of edits on the deck, then it goes. Herbert Simon’s whole point was that hunting for ‘optimal’ costs more than it returns. A limit decided in advance is what makes ‘good enough’ actually stick, rather than becoming just another thing you feel guilty about not doing properly.
If the sleep tracker helping you to sleep is making you sleep worse, maybe take the tracker off.
So, next time you catch yourself adding a fourth reviewer to something that was good enough after the second, or rewriting a sentence for the sixth time that was fine the first, ask yourself honestly whether you’re improving it, or just avoiding the discomfort of calling it a new form of unoptimized finished.
