As someone who works in analytics and the exact sciences, I’ve spent a career seeking optimal results.  “Optimal” has two meanings in my world.  First, it’s about being thorough and rigorous, having explored all reasonable options and parameters before settling on a result.  Second, it’s about truly optimizing something – finding a specific configuration or set of parameters that maximizes or minimizes an objective function.  It’s both a personal mantra and a mathematical construct.

But sometimes it can be hard to turn that mindset off, and things get interesting when that same optimization instinct leaks into everyday life.  Mowing the lawn becomes an experiment in path efficiency – are stripes faster, or are loops better since you never stop and turn?  Painting the shed turns into a scheduling problem – what’s the best time of day to avoid direct sun but still finish before the evening temperature drops?  Even mundane scheduling decisions – when to run errands, when to hit the gym, when to get an oil change – become small exercises in optimization.

There’s a certain satisfaction in finding “better.”  But is the constant pursuit of optimal, itself, optimal?  Life is full of variables we can’t model and constraints we can’t codify.  Chasing the perfect plan or path can become a subtle form of inefficiency, costing time and mental bandwidth.  Trying to optimize every detail might not yield a better outcome – just a more complicated one.

Not everything needs to be optimized; sometimes “good enough” is good enough.  In analytics, optimization is the point.  In life, it’s a tool.  And like any tool, it works best when used appropriately.  Sometimes, “good enough” isn’t a compromise.  It’s the global optimum, once you include sanity in the cost function.  At Track 2 Analytics, we help clients find the right balance between precision and practicality.

How has an optimization mindset leaked into your personal world?