One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all.
— Brian Tracy
Like many young kids in the 80’s and 90’s, I remember spending time reading through the Guinness Book of World Records. It was always fun to flip through its pages and see the many bizarre and crazy world records. The Tallest Man (Robert Wadlow at 272 cm), The Smallest Horse (Bombel at 56.7 cm), Longest fingernails (Shridhar Chillal at 909.6 cm), and many, many more.
For many of these records, it was fascinating to see the breadth and variety of what was in the world, But as a kid, looking at these records I would often wonder what would drive someone to try and achieve some of the more bizarre records.
For many of them it was likely centered in becoming obsessed with some very specific thing. Constant focus eventually lead to being the best at that thing, no matter how bizarre it might be.
While we might not all end up in the Guinness Book of World Records, we all do this sometimes. We become obsessed with something and pour our effort and focus into that activity. Sometimes these obsessions are useful and productive. Other times we might become obsessed with utterly pointless activities that are more like trying to grow the longest fingernails. We may get really good at these activities, but that doesn’t necessarily make them valuable.
When we find ourselves spending a lot of time optimizing some task, it is worthwhile to take a step back and determine if the task we are optimizing is worth doing at all. Often the answer will be yes, but sometimes it is no. When we determine that the answer is no, we choose to make the task 100% optimized by ceasing it completely.
What are some of the tasks that you find yourself spending a lot of time optimizing? Really think about it, do those tasks really need to be done at all or are you just growing really long fingernails?