Doing Things that Don't Scale

The argument for inefficiency

I walk home sometimes.

It takes about an hour and a half, which is long enough that it doesn’t make much sense to do it regularly. The train is faster, more predictable, and completely decided before you even step on it (unless there’s another Tube strike going on). You stand where you’re meant to stand, go where you’re meant to go, and get off where you already planned to.

It works. It just feels a bit… stuffy.

So I walk.

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Separately, I like doing something else.

I’ll walk around until I see a place to eat, then just go in. No checking, no comparing, no “is this the best one nearby”.

I just ask what they recommend and order that.

Once, in New York, I ran into my primary school classmate completely by chance. We were staying in the same hotel, and I convinced him to do the same thing – just walk aimlessly until we found somewhere.

The pizza was pretty bad, but we ate it anyway.

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It’s a different kind of thing.

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Most things don’t work like this anymore.

Before you go somewhere, you already know what it’s supposed to be. You’ve seen it on YouTube, filtered it through TikTok, and decided on it with ChatGPT. The actual experience becomes execution. Maps tell you the fastest route, apps tell you the best place, and increasingly, things decide themselves.

It works.

My AI agent tells me the optimal time to go to bed every night, based on my schedule and sleep. It’s usually right, and I follow it most of the time because it makes the next day easier.

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More and more of life is becoming like that. Decisions are getting made before we feel them, and things are getting optimised before we experience them. We don’t really notice it happening, because it works.

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I’d optimised most of my life to be as efficient as possible. It saved time and reduced mistakes.

But then I realised that I had stopped paying attention.

And that I had stopped encountering anything I hadn’t already chosen.

There’s a line people use in startups: do things that don’t scale. It’s meant as a phase — something you grow out of.

This feels more like something you keep.

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I don’t think this is about slowing everything down.

It’s about leaving some things undecided.

Not everything needs to be optimised. Not everything needs to be chosen in advance.

When everything runs, when everything is perfect, life becomes boring.

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So leave small parts of it unoptimised.

Walk instead of taking the train. Go into the first place you see. Order whatever they recommend.

Not because it’s better.

Just because it isn’t decided yet.