This is not another "premature optimization is the root of all evil" essay but you may find those legendary words to be applicable nonetheless.

If you work in technology, especially software engineering, optimization is the name of the game. We are Professional Optimizers, in a sense. In fact, we are even paid to optimize optimization - hence the initial quote by Donald Knuth. It is not enough to know how to optimize: we must know when.

Lately I have been thinking about what happens when this skill, this talent, this obsession leaks into our personal lives. I am sure that, for many of us, this is a "chicken or the egg" situation. Did we always relish planning life down to the minutiae? Are we just lucky to find a career that pays us to do this, or are we just learning to fill our off-hours with the same approach we use at work? For me it is likely both.

This is actually a very useful skill. There is nothing better than orchestrating your laundry, dinner, and tv show to all coincide perfectly such that every minute is used efficiently. The reward is satisfaction, productivity, and maybe even more time to do the other things you want to spend your time on.

It has its downsides though. Personally, I find that it can be easier or even more enjoyable to think about the optimal path rather than just...doing it. I find myself performing "sprint planning" for a Saturday morning, ultimately spending more energy calculating the optimal start time than I do actually starting. I may feel the weight of my upcoming "backlog" of tasks over living in the moment.

That's...kind of it. The first step to improving is recognition. I'm not sure what the path forward is other than breaking out of the cycle of over-optimization. I don't think this because optimization is "bad", but rather because things don't always have to be "good". Sometimes they can just be, and that is enough.