Optimizing From a Quantitative Aspect

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There's something like unappealing about even the idea of thinking of them in terms of optimization. I think that there is sort of instinct to put more importance, put more into things that are quantifiable when sometimes the really important things can't be measured with a number. When it comes down to figuring out whether you're rested and recovered and ready to perform again or recovered from a hard effort or a performance, the best measure is just your mood and how you're feeling. And that's not something that you can measure on a watch. It's notSomething that you can put a number on. But we tend to give less credence to feelings and to things that are more of a

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Why should we not optimize some things in life? Should some things (e.g., interpersonal relationships) be "off-limits" for optimization? How much time spent being unproductive is good for us? What can we learn by paying attention to our moods? Does science make progress and produce knowledge too slowly? Why is research methodology applied so inconsistently, especially in the social sciences?

Christie Aschwanden is author of Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn From the Strange Science of Recovery, and co-host of Emerging Form, a podcast about the creative process. She's the former lead science writer at FiveThirtyEight and was previously a health columnist for The Washington Post. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications, including Wired, Scientific American, Slate, Smithsonian, Popular Science, New Scientist, Discover, Science, and NPR.org. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Times. She was a National Magazine Award finalist in 2011 and has received journalism fellowships from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, the Carter Center, the Santa Fe Institute, and the Greater Good Science Center. Learn more about her at christieaschwanden.com or follow her on Instagram at @cragcrest or on Mastodon at @cragscrest.

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