Modern Wisdom #033 - Carl Cederstrom - What Happens When You Dedicate A Year To Optimising Your Life & The Happiness Fantasy
Oct 8, 2018
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A Year Spent Optimising Every Part Of Life
- Carl Cederstrom and André Spicer spent 2016 assigning each month to a life area and attempted extreme optimisation across productivity, body, brain, relationships, sex, money, creativity, morality, vanity and meaning.
- They immersed themselves in practices (e.g., CrossFit, plastic surgery, productivity coaching) and paired experiments with social limits, like keeping family life insulated during trials.
Write Faster With Strict Pomodoro Sprints
- Use the Pomodoro technique to force focused 25-minute work sprints with 5-minute breaks and strictly do nothing during breaks to sustain stamina across a long writing project.
- Cederstrom wrote most of an academic book in one month by tracking pomodoros per chapter and pairing the method with productivity coaching and occasional medication.
Three Deep Motives Behind The Optimisation Craze
- Cederstrom identifies three drivers of optimisation: the desire to be someone else, commodification under capitalism (self as marketable resource), and an attempt to escape death through youthfulness and performance.
- He links fitness, cosmetic interventions and productivity to these motives rather than purely self-improvement.