Hana: Today we are talking about optimisation. Most people think of it as something positive: finding the fastest route, organising time better, or reducing waste. Why do you think it can become a problem? Felix: Optimisation is useful when the goal is clear. If an ambulance needs the fastest route to a hospital, efficiency matters. The problem begins when we assume that every part of life should be made faster, smoother, and more predictable. Hana: Can you give an everyday example? Felix: Think about navigation apps. They are excellent at finding efficient routes. But when everyone follows the same recommendation, small residential streets can suddenly fill with traffic. The route is efficient for each individual driver, but the combined result may be worse for the neighbourhood. Hana: So something can be individually efficient but socially inefficient. Felix: Exactly. There is another loss too. When I first moved to my current city, I walked without using a map. I got lost several times, but I discovered a small market, a quiet park, and a café I still visit. If I had followed the fastest route every day, I would have saved time but learned less about the place. Hana: Some people would say that getting lost is simply inconvenient. Felix: It is inconvenient. I am not suggesting that inconvenience is automatically valuable. I am saying that not every unplanned moment is waste. Some things we value—curiosity, conversation, discovery, even friendship—often appear in time that was not designed for a specific result. Hana: Does the same idea apply to work? Felix: Very much. Many workplaces remove every empty space from the calendar. Meetings are placed directly beside each other, delivery times are shortened, and employees are expected to respond immediately. On paper, the schedule looks efficient. In practice, people have no time to think, recover, or notice problems before the next task begins. Hana: But organisations cannot simply leave large amounts of unused time. Felix: No, but they need some spare capacity. A system working at one hundred percent may look successful until something unexpected happens. If every employee, machine, or delivery vehicle is fully occupied, there is no room to respond to illness, technical failure, or sudden demand. Hana: So unused capacity is not necessarily wasted capacity. Felix: Right. It can be a form of resilience. We understand this in physical structures. A bridge is not designed to carry only the average amount of weight. It includes a safety margin. But in daily work, we often treat every gap as a failure of planning. Hana: What about personal life? People optimise sleep, exercise, meals, and even relationships through apps. Felix: Tracking can help people make better choices. But it can also turn an experience into a performance. A walk may stop being enjoyable because it did not reach the correct heart-rate zone. A dinner with friends may feel unproductive because it was not planned around a goal. Hana: Are you saying people should stop planning? Felix: Not at all. Planning protects time for what matters. Over-optimisation is different. It happens when the method becomes more important than the purpose. You organise your morning perfectly but feel anxious when one unexpected event changes it. Hana: How can someone recognise that this is happening? Felix: Ask what the optimisation is serving. Is it helping you live according to your priorities, or are you now serving the system you created? Also ask what disappears when everything runs perfectly. Are you losing flexibility, local knowledge, conversation, rest, or the ability to deal with uncertainty? Hana: What would a healthier approach look like? Felix: Optimise where mistakes are costly or repetition is boring. Automate a routine payment, improve an emergency process, or reduce unnecessary paperwork. But leave some areas open. Walk without the fastest route occasionally. Leave time between meetings. Allow a hobby to exist without measuring improvement. Hana: So the alternative to over-optimisation is not chaos. Felix: Exactly. It is selective efficiency. A good life needs structure, but it also needs margins. When everything is optimised, we may gain speed and control while losing discovery, resilience, and the freedom to change direction.