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David Epstein

๐Ÿ‘ค Speaker
4261 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

There's way more than they could ever get done already in process.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And so immediately they see it and say, we have to start moving some of this stuff out or we'll never get anything done.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And they have like a hopper where they don't say, we don't have to just throw that idea out the window.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

We can put it in a holding place, but it's backburnered, right?

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And then they implement this rule where you can't start a new project in the funnel unless one moves out of the funnel, right?

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

So it's contained.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

So they're making these choices about what not to do.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And some of those things that they decide not to do may be good ideas, but it doesn't matter because they weren't going to get to anything if they had all these ideas.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And I kind of took that and did that for myself because I thought that idea of making all your current commitments visible was really interesting.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And I did the same thing for my own commitments.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And you immediately realize, you immediately start looking at it and saying, this is a lot of stuff and these ones are a lot more important than those ones.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And I like all of these.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And if there were 10 of me, I'd be happy to do all of them, but there aren't.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And so it forces you to kind of prioritize.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And then I did the same thing with my information diet where I logged all the sources over a month that I turned to, did the post-its on the wall, said, which of these do I feel was worthwhile and kept that in.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And then occasionally new sources come in and then I'll move something else out of the funnel and it builds up, you know, so I have to kind of do it regularly.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

I think especially, like you mentioned, in the health and wellness space,

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

where there's so much content about optimizing this and that, that you could schedule every second of your day to optimize if you took all of this kind of advice, that I think can be so overwhelming that even really well-intentioned people do start

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

And then maybe fall prey to, and this is an actual psychological term, the what the hell effect, where you're trying to optimize all this stuff, you miss once, and then you're like, what the hell, I missed, and you just throw everything out the window.

Two Percent with Michael Easter
Why More Freedom Is Making You Miserable | David Epstein on Constraints

So I think that's a danger too.