Maxxing out and Pareto

I have slipped into Whoopmaxxing but don’t feel bad about it. That’s because I know I need to be pragmatic, not perfectionist. I try to operate with a grounded understanding of the Pareto Principle, which states that, for many outcomes, roughly 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort.

I invest in my own fitness by following the advice of people who are certified in their specialties. Some of those specialists are embedded in the conversations I have with the Whoop app every day. The lesson I have learned is that I can gain the most from going from zero to one, but then I encounter dwindling efficiency. Pareto says that likely around 80%–where the efficiency frontier begins to collapse.

So this is me, moving from doing nothing during an intense edtech conference and then getting stuck back into daily walks, 10k cycling routes, and drinking lots of water. Those activities confer significant benefits.

And here is a message for you readers who are gym rats: working out every day vs. 4x/week will yield diminishing returns. That’s the Pareto Principle applied to Fitnessmaxxing.