This last week I finally caved to one of the hundreds of instagram hacks of everyday items that promise to optimize that imperfect thing you own. (That my wife lovingly sends on a daily basis.)

You see, this time, I actually agreed that the Step2 Water Table did have a major flaw: no consistent water flow. I had that thought when I put it together a few months ago, then wham, a hack! Now it can be perfect.

Here’s the takeaway: living an optimized life usually has setbacks greater than the gift you gave yourself. There’s actually a sick article by Leo Babauta that you should totally read in full heresies that provides a great Case Against Optimization for this among other reasons, but first, the water table.

• The table has a part that flows water down a shoot which leads to slides, gears and this cool tipsy teeter totter piece. My son loves watching the water take a fun little journey to the bottom maybe more than just dripping from the middle.
• When you install that pump, it actually is placed over and through (therefore blocking) that part of the water table, making it totally unusable and pointless.

As I stood back and watched this for the first time, I just thought how much of a cost this new optimized benefit came with, and I didn’t love it. But maybe my son would?

• Nah. You see, there’s a plastic straw that the pump uses to pull water from the bottom. Guess what any 1.5 year old is going to do? Pull that straw right out from the bottom.
• In what world would I have thought the consistent flow of water would ever beat pulling on a plastic straw that pops out from something and then he can swing it around and hit stuff? (I am a first time father.)

That hack was totally whack. I reflected on this way more than the average person should. Which takes us back to Leo’s article, he has two considerations that I love regarding optimizations:

1. The savings never get realized.
2. Optimizing is a focus on what’s not important.

The savings (my time physically pouring water through the top) was literally never realized. Speaking of me physically pouring water through the top, that’s actually the most important thing: playing with my son.

So what is there to take into our vocations? Focus less on trying to make things perfect and more on doing less. You see, this water table is already perfect. It’s actually what it needs to be. If the engineers thought consitent flowing water would make it better, it would come with it, right? What they didn’t bet on, is you overriding its actual design for another purpose.

Not long ago I wrote an article about how I’m transitioning from a year of growing our processes to pruning those same ones I’ve built. Why? We’re spending more time trying to optimize and less time playing. What have you been spending time on optimizing again and again and still standing back without the savings realized? What happens if you just did less…

ps: an argument could be made that doing less is actually just optimizing in the other direction, but my point still stands!