LIFE MAXXING
i don't recommend it. plus, the 7 best protein bars, ranked.
i’m a bit embarrassed to admit how i spent my european vacation.
…alright
i spent it fiendishly searching europe’s cobblestone streets for…
protein bars.
???
worse, i did the same thing last year.
for those interested, i dropped my protein bar power ranking at the bottom.
but first, what’s wrong with me?
it’s no secret, i have a tendency to get a bit obsessed.
and it’s not limited to protein bars.
last summer i temporarily deviated from my protein bar quest and went in search of the best cardamom roll in paris. (i’ll save you 7600 kcal and €52 — just go to leonie).
nor is this limited to food. i do the same with travel. i’ll spend hours researching the best hotel, long past the point of enjoying the treasure hunt.
now that i think about it, nothing in my life is safe from this tendency.
need a new dishrag? → 20 min on amazon comparing reviews for a $7 product.
trying a new recipe? → check to see if there are similar ones with higher reviews.
must. have. the. best.
maximizers and satisficers
there are 2 types of people in this world.
when faced with a decision, you’re either a maximizer or a satisficer1.
a maximizer is the type to go shopping for a jacket, find one they like, ask the store to hold it for them, then spend the rest of the day scouring town in search of a better jacket.
a satisficer on the other hand will take the first jacket that meets their criteria:
isn’t hot pink ✅
has a zipper ✅
looks warm-ish ✅
and then they’ll go on with their day.
i used to think the satisficer was a loser.
i was wrong.
maximizer’s dirty little secret
maximizers obsess over every decision, so you’d expect them to feel good about their choices.
but they’re notoriously dissatisfied.
since they exhaustively evaluated all the options, they’re keenly aware of what they passed up by choosing door C.
it’s a bit like spending hours scrolling netflix, trying to pick the perfect movie. by the time you decide, it’s so late you don’t have time to watch it. and your partner (who was fine with… literally anything) is pissed.
but even if you did happen to settle on the “perfect” movie, you’re likely to get a quarter of the way through before kicking yourself for choosing the one with the highest rotten tomatoes instead of the one you really wanted.
if you're thinking, tadzio, this maximizer thing sure sounds a lot like modern dating. i had the same thought. followed by… wait, is this why i haven’t dated anyone seriously in 6 years?
confession time
i made it sound like maximizers have just one dirty secret.
that’s a lie.
while writing this, i discovered 7. and there’s probably even more.
but for the sake of time, we’re gunna bang-bang through these and zero in on just a few.
LESS SATISFIED — with their decisions (and by extension, life).
WASTED TIME — on trivial shit like finding the highest absorption dish rags.
warren buffett has a proposition for you — he’ll give you $138 billion in exchange for your youth. so you’d be a billionaire 138 times over, but you’d also be 94 years old. you taking that deal?
DECISION FATIGUE — the maximizer’s constant pursuit of the ‘best’ choice ironically leads to poorer decisions.
just like a muscle, decision-making fatigues with use.
example: tadzio exhausts his decision-making power comparing dish rags on amazon and makes an A+ decision there, but fumbles the bag later in the day when deciding which stock to invest his piggy bank in.
it’s why steve jobs famously wore a turtle neck and jeans every day. he thought he had better things to do than exert his energy assembling a fire fit.
CHERISHED OUTCOMES — in a recent interview, elizabeth gilbert was asked what she hoped to get out of the experience. she replied that she had, “no cherished outcomes”.
to the maximizer, this is an alien concept. cherished outcomes are all they have—perfectly laid plans that must be achieved, or else…
clinging to these cherished outcomes requires going head-to-head with the universe in an arm wrestling match. time after time, i’ve learned it’s a losing battle. and yet… i still try.
NEVER PRESENT — when you’re fixated on a cherished outcome (a desire), your mind is always a few steps ahead, scanning for ways to reach it.
it’s like hiking a mountain with your eyes fixed on the summit—you’re gunna miss all the beauty along the way.
// BRIEF INTERLUDE //
when traveling with friends, having the right ratio of travel doms (maximizers) to travel subs (satisficers) is critical.
6. ANALYSIS PARALYSIS
maximizers crave the “perfect decision”.
but that requires perfect information — a luxury we rarely have, especially at the beginning of a project.
if you wait around for perfect information, you’ll never start.
i know this because i’m guilty of it — heavy on planning, light on execution.
only by taking the first (blind) step forward will the next step be illuminated.
if you’re thinking about a project — consider this a sign — just start. today. no more planning.
this is the curse of the midwit. too smart for their own good.
7. LIFE MAXXING
my maximizing knows no bounds.
it permeates every aspect of my life. hence — life maxxing.
take the most productive day you’ve ever had — everything went your way — you hit green light after green light.
now set that as your baseline for what you expect out of every day.
you’re doomed to fail. and yet i do it everyday.
“interruptions” is what we call them.
maja calling me midway through my morning writing session to tell me about something she’s excited about.
but she doesn’t understand — my day simply won’t allow for interruptions. i’ve planned it down to the minute, and this unaccounted for interruptions threatens to derail my carefully laid plan.
the trouble is, today isn’t unique. because tomorrow won’t allow for interruptions either.
the truth is of course that what one calls interruptions are precisely one's real life.
-c.s. lewis
the larry david model
is there hope for the maximizer?
i think so.
how can i be so sure?
larry david.
i’m not saying LD is a maximizer, though that wouldn’t surprise me.
one thing we can all agree on is… the man is a touch neurotic.
a character flaw to most... but to LD?
he made a career out of it.
turned his greatest weakness into his greatest strength.
what is curb your enthusiasm if not a thorough documentation of larry david’s neurotic behavior and the sticky situations it lands him in?
we can do the same with maximizing, but not while it’s evenly applied across our life.
we need to find an outlet for it.
one or two areas in your life that you can go all in on.
you’ll never get rid of it, but you can re-allocate it.
optimizer extraordinaire, tim ferriss was asked how he thinks about where to optimize in his life. his advice: find one or two things to get really good at, and for everything else, settle for good enough.
by trying to maximize everywhere, you end up maximizing nowhere.
what to do?
i don’t have the answers, but i do have a few suggestions that i’ll be trying out myself.
the coin flip test:
this is a trick to get in touch with your intuition.
grab a coin, assign heads and tails, then flip…
in that moment as the coin hangs in the air — which side are you hoping for?
→ BOOM! that’s your choice.
the $20 razor:
it must be the immigrant mentality i inherited from my mom — i overthink small purchases. comparing two products that cost roughly the same, trying to decide if the more expensive one is worth the extra $1.45.
this used to be fun (if it’s still fun for you, keep doing it), but now it just feels like a poor use of time. so, for anything under $20, i don’t second guess. if i make the wrong choice, well it can easily be reversed for less than $20. which leads us to…
[note: the name is a nod to occam’s razor2, not the gillete type mf.]
one-way and two-way doors:
those purchases of $20 or less are two-way doors. meaning — they’re easily reversible. for decisions that are two-way doors, the satisficing approach is good enough.
one-way doors aren’t so easily reversed. having a kid is one example. or who you marry. those decisions are harder to reverse and justify a more maximizer-heavy approach.
exploration vs. exploitation:
when you’re at a restaurant do you order the dish you got last time and enjoyed, or do you roll the dice on a new entree?
kevin kelly suggests that the ideal ratio of exploration (new dish) vs exploitation (the dish you know is dank) is 30/70. i agree.
hey siri:
set a time limit for yourself to make the decision. my fav way to do is by dictating to siri to put 5 minutes on the clock. almost feels like i have a buttler.
bullshit allowance:
bullshit is invertible, even jeff bezos deals with it. you should expect to encounter it daily and allocate a budget for it. don’t be a tadzio with no room for the inevitable interruptions of life. when they appear (& they will) rest easy knowing that you accounted for them.
think of it as a luxury you’ve granted yourself. for someone like me, where never feeling rushed is the ultimate luxury, having a bullshit allowance ensures you can handle the unexpected without stress.
welp, that’s all for the week.
talk soon,
-t
🏆 protein bar power ranking 🏆
editor’s note: though i enjoy protein bars (obvi), i don’t reccomend consuming them. in fact, i don’t even consider them food. they’re really ‘industrially made edible product’ as chris van tullekan calls them in his bestseller, ‘ultra processed people’.
👅 BEST TASTE:
power crunch peanut butter (toss em in the freezer and ohhhh my)
⚖️ BEST MACROS:
david protein bar: 28g protein, 150 kcal 🤯
🍫 BEST CANDYBAR REPLACEMENT:
tie: barebells salted peanut caramel & robert irvine’s fit crunch peanut butter
🇪🇺 BEST EURO BAR:
grenade chocolate mint — tastes like a peppermint patty. if anyone in the UK wants to ship me a box, that’d be great.
🥈 HONORABLE MENTIONS:
aloha (mint chocolate and cookie dough) — quite tasty. macros are just ight: 14g protein, 220 kcal.
quest crispy peanut butter — macros are solid, taste is real good. probs deserves more than an honorable mention.
🧟 LEAST FRANKENFOOD-LIKE:
nugo slim
no palm oil
3g sugar (no artificial sweeteners or maltitol — genuinely perplexed how they sweetened it if they used just 3g of sugar)
certified gluten-free and non-GMO ingredients
can pronounce most of the ingredients
170 kcal, 17g protein — hits the 10kcal to 1g protein ratio i look for
🏆 BEST OVERALL:
tie (depending on how much you care about frankenfood // pure macros)
in the words of
… the david bar is pretty tasty, so long as you don’t look at the ingredients.
if you’re trying to limit your ultra-processed food consumption, but still need your protein bar fix — i’d reach for a nugo slim — mint or peanut butter — wholefoods has em for like $2.20 which feels remarkably affordable for bezo farms.
the paradox of choice - barry schwartz
FML I’m definitely a maximizer and spend too much time reading reviews for literally everything. Glad I found your Substack, catching up on several of your posts now. Are you Polish?? Also best protein bar I’ve had is KoRo in Germany but they don’t ship to the United States (I did try messaging them on Instagram…)
I am such a life maxxer... so this resonated haha. Love the inclusion of tips on how to deal! I actually did the coin flip for my college decision... and found out I did not want to go to the school it landed on. Thanks for writing this!