1/ Your life is a system composed of both competing and complementary fitness functions.
2/ You decide on goals for which you are optimizing the fitness: read more books, make more money, have better friendships, get healthier, etc.
3/ You then attempt to design an algorithm which accounts for the relevant variables in achieving those.
4/ The first important decision is which variables you choose. “What gets measured, gets managed” as Peter Drucker would say
5/ If you pick crappy variables, you will optimize your ability to be crappy.
6/ The second thing is understanding how different components interact.
7/ Let’s say your algorithm for getting healthier is composed of losing weight, get stronger, and be more flexible.
8/ Each of these has a fitness function themselves and often they have tradeoffs within the context of the larger system.
9/ By optimizing for the “lose weight” fitness function, you necessarily impact the “get stronger” fitness function b/c you aren’t eating enough calories to build muscle at a maximal rate.
10/ Popping up a level, you might find that optimizing for “get healthier” has tradeoffs with making more money or having better friendships or reading more books.
11/ I recently moved in with my girlfriend and I’d always wondered how she managed to work out so much.
12/ The answer is she doesn’t read as much as I do. She’ll wake up early in the morning to go to the gym and I’ll sit on the couch and read a book for an hour while she’s at the gym.
13/ We’ve made different choices about what variables to include for our life fitness function.
14/ For me, after I go to the gym two or three times a week, the marginal benefit of another hour reading is higher than another hour in the gym is better.
15/ Sometimes you can find synergies between activities that increase your overall fitness function.
16/ E.g. I could go to the gym and do a workout that was less intense, but still helpful and listen to an audiobook.
17/ Good “life strategy” requires understanding how the fitness functions affect one another and making deliberate choices about what you’re optimizing for.
18/ The most effective and happy people seem to do a good job of aligning their fitness functions with their values.
