Maybe It's Time to Stop Optimizing Everything

Why choosing the harder option might be the smartest thing you can do

Things are getting a little weird. People are putting protein in Pop-Tarts. You can order an IV drip to your doorstep like it's a pizza. Robots can write your emails, plan your trips, and tell you what to cook for dinner. Every film ever made streams 24/7 on a screen you can fit in your palm. The volume of options, and the speed of it all, can feel dizzying. It's a lot — and it's moving fast.

Every technology has a tipping point where it becomes more suffocating than liberating. I’m pretty sure we’re there.

Counterintuitive as it sounds, it’s time to bring friction back — the good kind.

I first heard the term “friction-maxxing” at a dinner for Bay Area nonfiction authors, where many of the guests were already practicing it. The “maxxing” framing put me off a little — but the idea itself resonated: intentionally choosing the inconvenient, analog, or old-fashioned option over the tech-enabled one, to build resilience, reclaim attention, and push back against a life so optimized it starts to feel hollow.

Curious? Here’s how to try it out:

7 Simple Ways to Add “Good Friction”

Disable One-Click Ordering

Remove your credit card from Amazon, turn off Apple Pay, and use cash or a card you have to enter manually. These few extra steps create a natural pause between impulse and purchase (and that pause is where better decisions happen).

Get Somewhere Without GPS

Pick a destination you roughly know and navigate by instinct or memory, or even a paper map. It sounds trivial until you realize how rarely you’re actually paying attention to your surroundings anymore.

Puzzle Something Out Instead of Consulting AI

Instead of asking AI what to make for dinner or how to navigate a hard conversation — ask a trusted friend, or better yet, figure it out yourself. Wrestling with uncertainty and pushing through discomfort is how we stay sharp.

Choose a Physical Book Over a Screen

A printed book doesn't notify you, recommend something else, or track how long you've been reading. The friction of a physical object — turning pages, losing your place, not being able to search the text — is actually part of the point. People who read regularly report lower stress, higher empathy, and better sleep, in part because a book is one of the few activities that asks something of you without offering an easy exit.

Buy Less, But Better — And in Person

Instead of adding to cart, visit an actual neighborhood shop and invest real time in one considered purchase. A well-made coat, a kitchen knife, a ceramic mug. The friction of researching, traveling, handling the object, and deciding slowly produces something no online retailer can: a deeper connection to the things you own — and maybe even the people who make them.

Walk to an Errand Instead of Driving

Pick one thing you’d normally do by car — the dry cleaner, the coffee shop, the pharmacy — and walk there instead, maybe even without your phone. Walking forces a kind of unstructured thinking that’s increasingly hard to come by. Psychologists call it “incubation” — the mind-wandering state where problems quietly solve themselves and creative ideas surface.

Bake Something From Scratch

Baking requires you to be present, pay attention, and wait for the payoff — which, it turns out, is most of the point. I'm not someone who finds cooking meditative, but I recently made these magic lemon blueberry muffins and was surprised by how satisfying it felt to make something real that other people actually enjoyed.

Of course the goal isn’t to throw your phone into the ocean - It’s just to notice where the easy option is costing you more than it’s saving you — and choose differently, sometimes, on purpose.

→ Reader Prompt: What’s one thing you’ve tried (or want to try) to add good friction to your life? Drop it in the comments.

Further Recommended Reading

The Future Is Analog, David Sax (2022) — Sax reports from classrooms, offices, and cities to show why analog life keeps reasserting itself.

Stolen Focus, Johann Hari (2022) — The most expansive take on the attention crisis — part memoir, part investigation. Hari travels the world to understand why we can’t concentrate, and who profits from our distraction.

No New Things, Ashlee Piper (2024) — A practical challenge to the cult of novelty. Piper makes the case for going deeper with what you already have rather than endlessly consuming what’s next.

Making: Josh McFadden’s creamy kale sauce pasta - so good!

Bookmarked: Meal delivery culture is out of control via Laura Fenton

Reading: All the Money in the World by Laura Vanderkam - what the happiest people in the world know about wealth

Wearing on Repeat: classic tee + favorite jeans + woven ballet flats + oversized trench

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