Do you feel a constant internal pressure to optimise everything?

I particularly mean things that we wouldn’t traditionally have thought to optimise, like hobbies and leisure activities like reading, walking or catching up with friends. I know I have felt this creeping in.

While optimising our work life is generally desired to be more effective, this mindset can seep into our personal lives. Sometimes it goes too far and sucks the juice out of life.

For me, a recent example of this is podcasts, which I usually love listening to. I devour them any spare moment I get. It’s incredible we can listen to them while doing other things that might have previously been considered ‘boring’ like driving to work or doing the dishes. Suddenly these mundane tasks can become an entertaining learning experience.

So, I noticed some weird habits creeping in where I am now trying to “optimise” my podcasts:

Speeding things up

Listening to various news-style podcasts at 1.5x or 2x speed in the morning before work. I like to be informed and get a quick news update of what’s going on in the world. 

But I have come to realise this is the equivalent of hooking my brain up to a turbo-charged firehose of negative and anxious thoughts that hijack my brain and set me off course. It seems hard not to get sucked into worrying about current events at the moment.

Notes, notes, notes

Long-form interview-style podcasts are my favourite (at normal speed!). I love a deep, meandering conversation. But lately, I can’t seem to listen to a good interview without pausing and rewinding every 30 seconds to write down notes to capture insights on what I am learning (why waste an excellent opportunity to capture some important wisdom that someone else has already figured out?).

While these notes are a terrific resource for my thinking and writing, it’s starting to suck the fun out of my once-loved podcast listening experience. It used to help me unwind after a busy day, but now it winds me up! This lands me on today’s question:

Do we need to optimise everything?

Or can we simply enjoy it for what it is?

Is there something that you unnecessarily optimise?

Could you scale it back in some way to make it more fun and sustainable?

Another way

I’m experimenting with some new approaches to improve my wellbeing.

1. Morning – Reading from a physical book before work. This slows my mind down and helps with creative thoughts.
2. Lunch – No news updates before lunch. And rather than trying to cram in multiple sources at double speed, mindfully consume one or two at normal speed. While I like to be generally informed, I don’t need to know and worry about every single issue.
3. Evening – I have returned to a previous love – music. Instead of only listening to podcasts to unwind after work, I listen to an album (start to finish). There is no temptation with music to listen to it at double speed or take notes. This has been a fun, nostalgic trip down memory lane.

What could you try?