For many years, hobbies were a simple escape from the chaos of daily life. People would dedicate hours upon hours to hobbies they enjoyed, regardless of how efficient or productive they were. However, activities such as cooking, exercising and even resting have recently become a “race to completion”. We as a society are no longer content with simply enjoying these activities, but instead look for a faster, better, more optimal method. In other words, we have become a society obsessed with optimisation, with our leisure time being no exception.
This conclusion is not just a modern observation. German sociologist Hartmut Rosa co-edited Lost in Perfection, a book dedicated to examining how Western society constantly demands self-improvement and perfection. Byung-Chul Han’s The Burnout Society delves into the debilitating consequences of our incessant “can do” attitude. Together, these texts probe the hidden psychological costs of our hyper-optimised culture, with this “permanent struggle for optimisation” being cited as a “significant cultural principle of contemporary Western societies”.
This principle can be seen most clearly in our approach to health and fitness. Going to the gym, swapping fast food for fruit or simply going to bed that little bit earlier should not become habitually obsessive. Yet perhaps nowhere is the pursuit of optimisation more apparent than in our attempts to perfect our own health. People now spend hours researching the “optimal healthy life”, transforming what should be simple, sustainable habits into an endless pursuit of improvement. Instead of moderation, many UK adults are drawn towards intense cardio sessions, restrictive diets and meticulously calculated meal plans.
These habits are not inherently negative. The problem arises when the image of being healthy becomes more fulfilling than simply being healthy. Through social media, adults are constantly presented with men and women of a similar age who appear to have dedicated their entire lives to health and fitness. Those consuming this content can inevitably compare, reflecting on their own supposedly “sub-optimal” diets, guiltily remembering the Domino’s they ate last week and beginning to resent lifestyles they previously had no problem living. From there, optimisation becomes restriction: fatty foods are rejected, ultra-processed “health” alternatives are embraced and every meal becomes another calculation in the pursuit of perfection.
None of this means that people should stop improving their diets or celebrating a new gym personal best. An apple a day may not literally keep the doctor away, but there is nothing wrong with wanting to live a healthier life. The danger lies in chasing complete optimisation. Once health becomes a collection of rigid targets, calories, macros and performance metrics, the satisfaction of living well can be stripped away and replaced by the exhausting pursuit of doing everything perfectly.
Take cooking as another example. We no longer take the time to create our own signature dinners or even be bold and try out a new recipe. Instead, we increasingly opt for a time-optimal meal prep or something cheap and pre-cooked. Even the process of learning to cook is becoming a pursuit of efficiency rather than an expression of our identity. A 2025 YouGov survey reveals that, unlike previous generations, 15% of UK households either rarely or never cook from scratch. A separate 2024 AO survey claims that almost half of young Brits largely opt for ready-made meals instead of home cooking. It suggests that, for many young people, cooking has become a convenience rather than a creative pursuit. One particularly visible influence has been the recent surge of professional footballers endorsing meal preps across social media. Mass mainstream endorsement of companies such as “Simmer” and “HelloFresh” is evidence of its growing popularity. From this, the real question becomes: why are we trying to optimise something that should be anything but?
This desire to optimise doesn’t stop when the day ends. Even sleep, a relatively unproductive part of human nature, has now been refined, studied and stripped of the relaxing feeling which it should induce. Thanks to high-tech consumer products such as pulse-monitoring sleep watches and meticulous mobile sleep apps, we know more about our bodily sleep cycles than ever before. This includes our sleep duration, our deep and light sleep stages and our resting heart rate. These can all be recorded around the clock by our beloved “health gadgets”. On the surface, this appears harmless, even useful. However, these devices remove the simple pleasure of rest. Ironically, it is this constant obsession over optimal rest which inhibits our natural ability to relax.
Indeed, there may not be a singular, definitive answer to our “permanent struggle with optimisation”. However, the recent surge of social media projection, intense self-scrutiny and a rise of health-conscious culture has been associated with mental health conditions related to obsessive fixations on one’s health. This includes orthorexia—excessive focus upon one’s food quality, orthosomnia—an unofficial label for people with an “unhealthy obsession with achieving perfect sleep” as is recently defined by The Guardian, and exercise addiction—a condition largely tied to intense obsession with gym and working out. These issues share a common thread: a growing difficulty in being content with our lives, ourselves and our image.
Instead of taking joy in a home-cooked meal, we obsess over counting calories and opt for someone else to concoct a nutrient-rich one.
Instead of sleeping for 8 hours and being content, we mull over our underlying sleep data.
Instead of being satisfied with a few weekly gym workouts in a busy week, we scan the internet for the most optimal workouts, then cram them into robotic, 30-minute, ultra-intense sessions.
In our pursuit of optimisation, we ironically risk neglecting our goals of self-care and enjoyment in a disguised form of self-surveillance.
Perhaps the solution is not to abandon optimisation altogether. Wanting to be efficient in our hobbies to mould them around a busy schedule is not inherently wrong or damaging. It only becomes damaging when optimisation becomes the purpose, not the means, to enjoy life. A hobby does not need to be optimal to be worthwhile, nor does it need to always be fulfilling. What matters most is that it is spontaneous, enjoyable and completely unproductive. There will always be room for you to find shortcuts or less time-consuming ways to relax, but sometimes it might just be better to enjoy your free time by simply wasting it.
