By Colby Kultgen
The Cost of Over-Optimizing, Ordinary Abundance, and Books You Can’t Put Down
Read online / Read time: 4 minutes
Hello friends!
We're back with your weekly dose of 1% Better.
If you're new here, this is the newsletter where I share my 5 favorite ideas, lessons, and discoveries of the week.
Let's not waste any time!
1. A reminder to stop optimizing everything
Ok, I'm cheating a bit with this first one.
This is an idea I already shared over on Instagram.
But a shocking number of people seemed to relate, so I thought it was worth bringing here too.
Here’s the original post, in all its glory:
I have a confession.
I’m addicted to making “optimal” decisions.
I’ll spend 30 minutes comparing restaurants before deciding where to eat. I’ll research a $40 purchase like I’m acquiring a small company.
But lately, I’ve noticed a couple funny things about this habit.
1. The more options I consider, the less satisfied I am with the one I eventually choose.
If I pick quickly, I usually just enjoy what I chose. If I spend an hour researching every possible option, suddenly I know enough to question the decision afterward. This restaurant is good...but what about the 4.8-star place I bookmarked? The movie is good...but the other one did have a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s a weird form of decision FOMO. You do all that work to make the “best” decision, then give yourself a dozen reasons to wonder if you made the wrong one.
2. I waste an absurd amount of life comparing versions of experiences instead of having one.
Netflix is probably the dumbest example. I’ll scroll for 20 minutes looking for something great to watch, which is precisely the length of an episode of half the shows on Netflix. At a certain point, the extra optimization simply isn’t worth the time it costs.
So all this to say, I’m trying to get better at knowing when good enough is good enough.
Make the decision. Close the tabs. Get on with my life.
Let me know if you relate to this.
Maybe we'll start a support group for chronic over-optimizers.
Okay, I’m cheating again.
Last week, I tucked this article down in the bonus section of the newsletter.
But after sitting with it for a few days, I realized that it might be the best thing I’ve read all year.
Ordinary Abundance is a reminder of how easy it is to take modern life for granted. It looks at everyday things like running water, electricity, and refrigeration through the eyes of people who once experienced them as miracles.
I loved it.
Especially with how much doom and gloom there is around technology right now, it’s nice to mix in a little optimism once in a while.
If you want to check out some of the other pieces vying for the title of best thing I’ve read this year, here are a few:
3. A reminder that unfinished things charge interest
OVERSIMPLIFICATION ALERT.
Two hours of work probably isn’t going to get you out of debt or fix your marriage.
But I do think there’s a kernel of truth to this.
We all have things that would make our lives noticeably better if we just sat down and dealt with them. And the longer we leave these things open, the more they start charging interest.
I once put off sending a single email for nearly a year.
A YEAR.
In my head, it became this enormous, complicated thing that I kept finding reasons to deal with “later.” Meanwhile, avoiding it created a whole string of other problems that also needed dealing with.
When I finally sat down and wrote the email, it took less than 15 minutes.
Your challenge this week: Pick one thing you’ve been putting off and schedule a block in your calendar to take care of it. Extra credit if you reply with when you’re doing it. I’ll hold you to it.
4. A Reddit thread I bookmarked instantly - full thread here
As someone who is always looking for great book recommendations, this thread was an instant bookmark for me.
A few of the top responses:
- Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
- Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck
- Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- Shōgun by James Clavell
- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
My unreasonably long reading list just got a little longer.
5. A tweet that made me chuckle
P.S. If you made it this far, send me what you're currently listening to 🎧. I'm putting together a new playlist and I know my readers must have elite taste.
— Colby
