Maximizing Value

It’s very easy to get caught up in engaging in tasks or ventures that offer “any value.” Meaning, we chose an activity or a commitment because we can identify some benefit, however trivial, and therefore assume it’s a positive choice. The danger in this is twofold. First, there is always an opportunity cost in the time and effort required for the action. Second, there are often unintended or undesirable “collateral consequences” that come along for the ride.

For example, you begin the day by turning on the news because there is a particular bill in the house you are following or maybe you are hoping to find out why you heard so many sirens going by your house in the wee hours of the morning. In the process of watching the news you may or may not get the information you were seeking, but you also were likely exposed to plenty of trivial and sensationalized “news” that will do you no good. In fact, it may even do you harm because of the pessimistic nature of reporting and its detrimental effect on the outlook of your day. In an effort to avoid being uninformed, you end up misinformed. And of course, there is the question of how could you have used that same 30 minutes to a more beneficial end?

This is like eating a block of Hershey’s chocolate for the antioxidants in the cocoa. Yes, there is “some benefit” but does that marginal value outweigh the costs? You could spend all day scouring the internet for a better rate on your savings account, transfer the money, and then spend the remainder of the afternoon updating all your banking info and automatic payments. Would there be a benefit to having 0.12% more interest on your savings? Sure, but does the $4 a month of extra interest justify the time and effort you spent to achieve it? Similarly, I know people who will drive across town to save seven cents a gallon on gas and fail to consider whatever they saved on dollars per gallon was wasted on the gas consumed by extra miles driven, not to mention the time spent on this ill-conceived errand.

We must commit to searching for optimizing value, rather than accepting any value. This means carefully considering the cost of our time, energy and attention on top of filtering out the collateral consequences as best we can. Accepting any benefit or marginal utility can be a costly choice.

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