Optimization is the last step of any process.
Be it building a house, starting a business, creating a new habit etc.—the fine tuning should never happen first.
- When it comes to building a house, who cares about auto-timed lighting as a means to optimizing the house’s energy efficiency—if there are no walls.
- When it comes to starting a business, who cares about the color of the checkout button as a means to optimizing clicks—if there is no marketing plan in place to drive visitors to the business’ website.
- When it comes to creating a new exercising habit, who cares about the exact rest time allowed in-between sets as a means to optimizing workout pace—if you don’t even have the habit of showing up to the gym.
In today’s world, optimization is an obsession.
Many of us are constantly on the hunt for (and are being bombarded with) optimization “hacks,” fine-tuning tricks, and hot trends that can produce any kind of measurable result.
But, without the foundation set—without the “big” things already in place—it’s ultimately just wasted time.
It’s like trying to optimize a lump of coal. You can try to clean, cut, and polish it all you want—it’ll still end up mostly as it started—coal.
If, however, you subjected that lump of coal to enough time under pressure, it’ll eventually transform into a diamond.
And diamond is what gets optimized.