Optimization Without Direction

This is kind of an embarrassing story… But last week I went for a morning run and when I came back from it and stripped down for a shower, I realized my shirt was on inside out. I only noticed because as I took my shirt off, I reversed it back and then threw it in the hamper. 

For whatever reason, that stood out to me. How convenient would it be if that’s what happened every time? Instead of needing to reverse all my shirts after a load of laundry, I’d just be able to fold them right away. For the smallest glimpse of a moment I thought about wearing my shirts inside out all the time, but then I realized how absurd that would be. And it reminded me of a trap we fall into all the time:

People naturally seek efficiency. It’s literally wired into our evolutionary biology to want to do more with less… To conserve energy and take the path of least resistance. But that desire often misguides us and gets us really good at doing the wrong things:

We must first focus on being effective, then we can focus on being efficient.

It’s critical to validate that whatever we’re doing is generating the desired result. That a process is actually taking us in the right direction. Or else we get really good and streamlined at doing things that don’t do anything for us.

We shouldn’t put time into automating a program fulfillment workflow until we know that people want to buy it…

We shouldn’t get all of the best equipment for a triathlon before we’ve even started training…

Of course optimization and streamlining or efforts is important. It reduces waste, increases leverage, and lowers the amount of effort needed to sustain a certain result. But that optimization first must have direction - a tactic that is proven to be effective - before it becomes more efficient.

I’m a systems guy, and the way that I get into trouble with this is thinking through every detail of how something would ideally work before validating it’s something I need to do. Speed is more valuable at first. We have to start by running an experiment and get feedback so that we avoid overengineering something we’re never going to use.

And I encourage you to think through how this might be showing up in your life. Be effective before you’re efficient. Optimize with purpose. It’ll help you achieve what you’re actually after - doing more of what works, better. 

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