Time Efficient 5k speed training (Bonus: 30 minutes of Audiobook)
After a 12 week training program, I ran a 18:54 (sub 19) 5k for the first time in my life. Bonus: I weighed 186lbs, it was 80F+ degrees outside, and I had been multitasking by listening to nonfiction audiobooks for almost all of the training program. Now my resting heart rate is under 50!
If you want a 5k training program that makes you faster, your cardio significantly better, without wasting time, this is the program for you.
Some personal background
The thing I’m most proud of, I didn’t change my lifestyle for it, I worked it into my regular workout schedule.
At the start of 2025 I made a New Year’s Resolution to do 30 minutes of combined cardio + (nonfiction) audiobook per day. Health benefits, energy benefits, and more knowledge.
I didn’t need to run fast. One of the purposes of the combined 30 minute audiobook + cardio was to not care about speed, as I tend to have more willpower than physical ability… and I seem to injure myself.
By the start of summer, I decided I wanted to further improve my cardio for health reasons. Enter: The Speed Day.
The Routine
- 1 Speed Day Per Week
- 1 Distance Day Per Week
- 3-5 Easy Days Per Week
Attached is the routine in a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LbSnZhED202-CJIyUAzuSnFcc8o0y5dkZyJydMCAbpE/edit?usp=sharing
To determine your times use this website: https://vdoto2.com/calculator
More details and tips below.
The Efficiency
I cannot make claims this is the most pure Efficient 5k running plan, there is science missing here. This is no Pi= C/D perfection here. However the running coach who made this routine combined their college athlete level experience with my requirements of 30 minutes of cardio per day. The engineer in me says: If it meets spec, good enough.
To make this as Efficient as possible, I did the following:
- Audiobooks during all easy days, distance days, and during speed day warmups and cooldowns.
- This was typically done as a break from work. I’d use this when stuck on a problem or exhaustion.
- I would go to our local run club for 1 easy day/week, listening to audiobooks in the car, and socializing/networking/meeting people at the event.
Only 1 speed day per week meant only sacrificing ~15-20 minutes of audiobook time. Distance days were longer than the desired 30 minutes, but I still listened to audiobooks, and once you get into running, having 1 distance day per week is normal.
The Speed Days
These are the important days. The rest of the week, you can casually mess around and not care about your times.
If possible, I’d wait until the weather was nice. This is the only workout that matters, so I would typically look for the best day between Tuesday and Thursday(and rarely Monday or Friday). The rest of the days get filled in with easy days.
If the weather was too hot and sunny, I’d do my 1 mile warmup to the shady part of my route. Even if you have to run under hot conditions, your workout is going to push your cardio. You are always winning on speed days, even if you can’t quite hit the time due to weather.
I hesitate to tell you the following because I didn’t know I was allowed to fail on speed days. There were 8 x 600m repeats that I would successfully do 5, then the last 3 were painful struggles that I would fail on. Not even the shame of failure could get me to move faster. I thought I had 0 chance of completing my goal. But… Apparently it didn’t matter. Pushing myself hard was the workout.
I broke tradition and would alternate fast and slightly less fast. While conventional wisdom says to have a consistent speed, I break tradition here. My reasoning is that doing the same form means lactic acid is going to build up for the entire workout. If you alternate between two forms, it gives your muscles a break. Admittedly these were both fast, but one was super fast, and the other was a recovery fast. Coach disagrees with me here.
Eating
A constant fight me and my running coach had was over food.
A 185lb person is going to use more energy than a 135lb runner. I insisted that I needed to lose 15lbs. Coach insisted I needed to fuel.
I relented and ate.
My compromise was after the 12 week plan, I’d cut 10-15lbs and retry when the weather was 20 degrees colder. To my shock, I still hit my goal.
As a fun fact, this whole thing has me inventing a new type of competition. Momentum race. Whoever has the highest weight * average speed wins. More details Here.
Easy Days
Easy days are super fun. There are basically no expectations. I was running at 9 or 10 minute mile pace (my 5k pace was under 6:06).
3-5 days a week, you will be running easy. This means you could take a day off cardio. I personally didn’t due to my 30min/day goal, and I think this helps with habits for psychological reasons.
I would listen to my audiobook and take voice to text notes while running.
At least 1+ easy day per week, I’d stationary bike. This is important to mention. You should be giving your body time to repair. Do not run 7 days a week.
A tip on these easy days: Feel good, get blood flowing to your legs. After a speed day, my legs would feel wrecked. There is something that feels good about running with different forms. While most of my easy days would be mindless, I’d occasionally feel good changing up my form:
- Running on my tip toes.
- Running with high knees.
- Running fast for a few seconds before slowing down. (I believe people call this ‘Strides’)
- And of course, normal mindless running.
Distance Days
These were typically easy, but I have a caveat.
After the middle of the routine, the coach gave me 2 different distance days to alternate. Easy and progressively difficult. Easy is just like the easy days above.
Progressive distance days started at 9 minute mile pace and would reduce down to 7:30 pace by the last mile. For 9 miles, this means reducing by 10 seconds per mile.
Injury/Pain
Less running and more rest. This means more stationary bike days(or whatever cardio). You can eliminate distance days if necessary.
At one point, I took 1 week off speed days to recover.
I nearly always run the day after a speed day or distance day. I’m a believer in getting blood flowing.
Hot tubs or hot showers with stretching may help as well.
Admittedly as the race day was approaching, my knees were not 100%. However I knew I had less than 10 days left, the last week was easy, and after the race, I could take it easy.
Race Day
Other people like to sign up for races. I like picking the best day, time, and location for me. In this case, I waited until the sun went down and I was feeling good.
Of course eat good/carbs. Maybe some caffeine before the run.
Here is the big tip: Go for your goal.
If you had the goal, do it. Know your pace and keep to it. I accidentally ran faster on my first mile, and was happy to know I had a little bit of wiggle room. If I compromised on the run, I would have ran a slow first mile and had 0 chance of recovery.
The training plan you have been working on for 12 weeks and struggling was built for you to struggle. You are likely capable of hitting your goal. This was all built in.
Don’t compromise.
Race day tips from Coach
Do not go into the run thinking you will fail, or you definitely will.
Go into the run and grit out the pace for as long as you can.
You can do this.
Race day adrenaline is legit.
Clothing and Equipment
Shoes
I had 2-3 shoes to cycle between. An old pair, a new pair, and speed shoes.
My speedy shoes force you on the front of your feet and would feel weird running on the back. This is your race day shoes. They were purple and sparkly, forcing me to run fast or be embarrassed haha.
My new shoes were typically worn most of the easy runs and most of the distance runs. Especially when going to social running events. They looked nice.
My old shoes were a nice change. You can imagine slightly different angles mean different muscle use and different muscle wear and tear. I’d wear these ~1 time per week if I remembered.
Clothing
On sunny speed days days: white shirts. It reflects the sun. I specifically cut a tshirt from sleeve to waist to allow breathing. It looked silly, but it does reflect the heat, and it does allow breathing.
Nothing special on shorts or socks.
Tight underwear, to prevent chafing.
In the winter, before starting this routine I’d wear the following: Shirt, Hoodie, neck gater, sunglasses, one tight underwear, one loose underwear, sweatpants. I’d also run on trails when the road froze over.
Smart Watch
Cheap Garmin.
Halfway through I got the Strava app.
Hypee
This program can work for you too.
You will improve your cardio health. You will have some vanity numbers to show off to friends. You will be faster!
You can do this.
Short: Save time brewing coffee with an 1 cup measuring scoop in your coffee container
For too long I’ve been doing ~12 heaping scoops of a tablespoon to fill up my coffee filter with coffee grounds.
I finally had enough and decided to measure out the coffee grounds required to make a pot of coffee.
Given every indivdual has their prefered strength of coffee, I suggest doing this once:
Do your regular scoops, but instead of putting them in a coffee filter, place it in a measuring cup. I make a full pot of coffee, so I put 12 heaping scoops into a 1 cup measuring cup.
Take note of what this looks like, mine was a slightly heaping 1 cup of coffee grounds.
Now I can leave a 1 cup measuring cup in my coffee container and instead of taking 12 motions, I can take a single motion to add coffee to my coffee filter.
Short: Print Labels To Reduce Time Daily Writing (on baby bottles)
Our daycare has a requirement label our bottles with our child’s name, date, and type of liquid. For our first child, we had been writing this information on 4 pieces of tape, everyday.
We bought a digital label maker, and now we can print these labels, changing only the date.
Its been a favorite for the next 3 kids we had, saves time every morning.
Time Efficient Packed Lunches
When my daughter came home with uneaten Red Pepper slices, something Mrs. Efficiency had spent labor to cut up, I decided this had to be studied.
Bonus points if your kid packs their own lunch. Although given pre-school chaos, this might be more ideal than real. Could pack lunches at night.
Specifications/Requirements
A packed lunch had a requirement Not to be something heated. No leftovers would meet this criteria. The grey area here is that some typically warm foods like Pizza are enjoyed cold. This can be cultural, and more power to anyone who can eat leftovers cold.
Food must have some caloric content to give energy for the rest of the day. A bunch of celery sticks isn’t enough, even if by volume they could satiate and fill a stomach. Let us set a goal for ~500 calories.
Foods must have some desired nutritional content. Protein and vitamins are deemed universally acceptable in this case.
Known winners
Ready to eat Fruit and Vegetables
The best:
- Bananas immediately come to mind. They are among the most perfect of foods that satisfy the Requirements. ~100 calories, have vitamins, and take almost no time to put into a lunchbox.
- Small, easy peal, Oranges, they arent as many calories, but I suppose you could get larger oranges or pack multiple.
- Dried fruit, these are semi-heavy in calories, depending on the fruit they have varying amounts of nutrition. Dried blueberries are higher in nutrition than rasins, but more generally these are great options
- Baby Carrots, low in calories but high in nutrition
Lesser options that come to mind, but they have some downsides:
- Blueberries also need to be washed, but have significant enough vitamins and enough of them do hit caloric goals.
- Strawberries need to be washed and are relatively low calorie, but they do have significant vitamins.
- Apples, they need to be washed and do not have the vitamin content found in Bananas or Oranges.
- Grapes, these also need to be washed and similar to apples do not have the vitamin content found in Bananas or Oranges.
- Celery Sticks, these don’t to be washed, but they are low calorie and low vitamin, these are somewhat a waste of time, but could be filling by volume.
As you can see, spending time washing fruit is an unwanted time-sink. To save time, you could get all your fruit out, wash it at the start of the week and package it.
Protein
Smoked/preserved meats come to mind as ‘The Best’ when it comes to fast. I am aware that these are costly and potentially have carcinogenic properties, but I believe it would be wrong to not include them for their Efficiency:
- Beef Jerky: Expensive but tasty
- Meat Sticks: Heavier in fats could be useful if trying to hit caloric goals
-
Lunchmeat: Turkey, Ham, that sliced stuff. This is only Efficient if you don’t make a sandwhich, however if you were going to add something simple like bread, cheese, or mayo to supplement calories(see later section), this could be acceptable. Just don’t spend time adding something calorie-free mustard.
Lesser:
- Hardboiled eggs: Easy enough to toss a carton of eggs in water, let it boil, and use them all week. Eggs have lots of nutrition and for a caloric goal, fat.
- Nuts: High in calories and often banned at schools, at least it has some protein.
Calories
These are almost too easy.
- Crackers
- Bread
- Cheese sticks
- Cereal
- Yogurt
- Granola Bars
- Trail Mix
Covering everything in oil. As long as it takes almost 0 time to prepare, I consider these meeting requirements.
Completed pre-packed lunches
We all know about Lunchables and similar foods. They follow this
Things to avoid
As mentioned earlier, avoid:
- Washing
- Cutting/Chopping
- Complexity: Keep the number of items limited so you aren’t making many trips to cabinets, pantry, and refrigerator.
What combinations can you vision?
Considering everything said, could you further optimize by getting items from the same location? Hypothetically, if you were making a lunch with Beef Jerky, a banana, and crackers, you could put everything in the same spot on the counter, and pack everything without taking any extra steps. Alternatively and a bit more strange, if you were making a lunch of meat sticks, dried fruit, and crackers, could you put everything in the refrigerator?
Power Efficiency – Increase your Power Dynamic with little cost
‘I didn’t invent the laws of nature, I just follow them.’
Like it or not, Power (as a macro effect) is a real thing that determines outcomes of interactions. It cannot be avoided and even if you pretend it doesn’t exist, you are subjected to its effects.
Power Illiteracy is a real thing, and hopefully from this article alone you will benefit from this dynamic of the world. Everyone has their own theory on Power, I think its simplification of a few effects.
Power explained
“The POWER of a Man, (to take it Universally,) is his present means, to obtain some future apparent Good.” – Hobbes
Imagine a case where a smart well dressed person is having a conversation with a super smart person with bedhead and rags on. This is a conversation among equals, where each side must take their turn and test boundaries. Now imagine this same super smart person is equally as well dressed. This is no longer a conversation among equals, there is a superior and an inferior. The superior now decides the topics, can interrupt, decide norms and ethics of the conversation. All because they changed their clothes and styled their hair.
That is an example as Hobbes would say Power of Form(Beauty).
In the modern era, much power comes from Economic sources. Its a ‘good enough’ short cut to say Money = Power. Outside of politics and fame, there are few ways to get substantial power other than money. However we can use Form(Beauty), economic/social efficiencies, to give you more power.
Instant Power Increases
Look Better
Look Better
Stand up taller, fix your posture.
Don’t think about personal examples of this truth too long, it’s painful. There are stories of diplomats getting shorter chairs than their hosts to make their hosts appear taller. Standing up taller and fixing your posture can be the difference between among equals and or among superiors and inferiors.
It is worth checking your appearance before a major meeting or encounter. If you can think of any instant things you can do to look better, you should do it.
Sound Better, Be Charismatic.
I’m no expert here. The boldest claim I will make is that you shouldn’t say ‘Um’ or any variants. “Thank before you speak.” If that is even possible.
I’ve also heard a random person on the internet say: “Talk Lower and Slower”
Can you understand the general idea here? Sound better. It increases your relative power to the other person.
(Give yourself a bit of a break, these simple rules are insanely difficult in the momentary nature of interactions. Practice makes perfect.)
Sleep Less
Me and Dr. Mandy Kirk have been doing biphasic sleep for almost a decade. 6 hours of nighttime sleep and a 20 minute nap. Alternatively, I’ve found 4 hours nighttime and 2 hours daytime nap has worked with my family’s lifestyle. We have 4 kids.
Be Intentional
Its easy to get into autopilot and do easy, low value activities. A simple todo list can spark a memory of an easy, high value task that can be done while you are drinking a morning coffee.
On a similar note, I’ve found fun, high value activities on my todo list that got me running first thing in the morning.
The goal here is to be intentional and organized at least a little.
Increase Your Power In 5 Minutes
Change your Clothes
I know sweatpants and a zip up are soo nice to feel, but I don’t make the rules.
I might dread the stiffness of a dress shirt, but I’ve seen the difference it makes as mentioned in the opening example.
I’d like to lend one more example. For the second time in my life, I was meeting my Kid’s teacher. This time it was for an extra privilege, asking to attempt to test out of a grade. I had considered wearing jeans and a shirt, but decided that regardless of the length of time we were talking, it was the event that was important. Not only did the janitor think I was important enough to let into the school early, but I also had that teacher’s full attention. These little factors may be something subtle, but the totality can be the difference between Among Equals or between Superiors/Inferiors.
Change your hair
Bed head is obvious in my life. I need to shower, or at least spend a few minutes wetting then styling my hair.
Sometimes I will add water and styling product + blow dry in about 60 seconds. Its a hack job, but most of the time, its better than nothing.
Changing your clothes + doing your hair is a combo that I cannot recommend enough. Its bizarre how different people will treat you.
Increase Your Relative Power in Hours
Money and appearance increase your absolute power, however your power is most often relative in value. For instance, I might have lots of money, but I’m not really powerful to a plumber when I have an emergency issue.
The suggestion is to diversify and give yourself more options. I’ve written other articles about how getting 3 prices give you a decent statistical average. For high stakes items I got for 5-6 quotes.
On a similar note, I’ve had to hire people for jobs and I’ve decided I prefer having departments of part time workers over a single full time worker. Diversifies.
I have 4 kids, if one of them refuses dinner, I can give it to the other 3. They are well aware of this and act accordingly.
Negotiation Tips
When using this power, you have two options: Unilateral actions and bilateral negotiation.
Unilateral Actions
These are relationship hurting, but it can accomplish your will.
Fait accompli, meaning, ‘Its already been done’. This is when you just do whatever you want and deal with the fallout. If you are the stronger power, this should go uncontested. If you are among equals, it will hurt your relationship significantly. If you are the lesser power, it might not work at all.
Consider changing the topic in a conversation. When you do it, ‘it is done’. However, if you are a lesser power, the greater power may revert back to the topic without skipping a beat.
Bilateral
This is your classic negotiation. My advice here is to find some mutual ground to base off. You shouldn’t expect the other side to completely capitulate or change their desires. You shouldn’t personally value ‘atmospherics’ like useless titles, but rather tangible goals. Beware of people who are not at the negotiating table claiming you can get 100% of what you want with no compromise, these people do not have buy-in, and get to enjoy moral high grounds without sacrificing anything.
Moral Coating
Instead of merely making demands, its best to explain Why you deserve your outcome. When being selfish, you can make claims that your survival is important. When working with a greater power, you can make claims of equality and fairness. Whatever you choose, find an overlap in Values that your adversary and bystanders would agree upon.
Should you use Power?
While every interaction involves a power dynamic, it doesn’t mean you should be using Unilateral tactics because you can. One aspect of power is ‘likeability’, and by using unilateral tactics, you reduce this. Alternatively, spending money to achieve your will, means potentially less money in the future.
Even if you do not plan on any active use of Power, these laws of nature affect you regardless. Other people will be using them, and its best for your own sake to be aware and optimize in your best interest.
Sequencing aka Multitasking but with each body part.
We all multitask, or attempt to. This idea of multitasking is a bit finer as it attempts to utilize your idle body parts.
Imagine you grab a bag of cheese out of the refrigerator and are walking to your stove to put cheese on some food. Instead of opening the bag of cheese when you arrive, you can open it during your walk. This makes use of both your legs and your arms.
If you can apply this daily and save 2 seconds, that adds up to ~10 hours in your lifetime. Suppose you find ~5 of these useful, that can be 50 hours of savings.
I look at this list and admittedly they seem a bit trivial or obvious, but I went for breadth in order to give a plethora of ideas.
Kitchen Ideas for sequencing
- Pealing Fruit
- (Un)cap spices
- Begin tearing lettuce
- Opening yogurt/applesauce
- Shake a drink
- Open a snackbag
- Shell a hardboiled egg
- Open a vitamin/medicine container
- Open a jar
- Open a cheese bag
- Peal off stickers from fruits/veggies/produce.
- Uncap a waterbottle
- Unwrap food items
- Unscrew baby bottles or sippy cups
Household Ideas
- Sort mail, potentially open mail.
- Open a trashbag
- Open up a package
- Click a pen
- Tear tape
Clothing
- (Un)button a shirt
- (Un)zip
- Put on a watch/bracelet.
- Use a hair tie on your hair.
Pets
- Open bags
- Break up treats
Everywhere
- Check your phone/reply to messages
Greater Takeaways
I partially want to apologize about how simple some of these are. I hope the greater takeaway is a new consideration of using your hands and mind while walking. These are merely ideas to consider in the future that can save you literal days of your life in efficiency gains.
Beef $ Is Up, 32 Chicken Recipes And Replacements
Ground beef prices are $5 a pound and our household has adjusted. We could probably afford it, but Chicken may be healthier and cheaper.
I made it a challenge of sorts to replace ground beef in our favorite recipes as ‘hamburger helper’ was one of my kids favorite things.
- Chicken but Hamburger Helper Offbrand + Noodles and Salt
- Chicken Mac and Cheese
- Chicken Pesto
- Chicken Shepherd’s Pie (Bonus for Slow Cooker Scraps)
- Slowcooker Shredded Chicken in Lentil Soup
- Chicken Hamburger?
- Golden Curry Chicken
- Stuffed Pepper Soup?
- Cheesy Broccoli Soup (Shredded Chicken)
- Sausage and Peppers but with Chicken
- Brown Sugar Pork with Chicken
- Chicken Rice and Cheese
- Fajita Chicken and Rice
- Chicken Rice Furkake
- Chicken Alfredo
- Chicken Fried Rice
- Chicken Stir Fry
- Chicken Fajitas (Bonus for Slow Cooker Scraps)
- Chicken Quesadilla
- Chicken Pad Thai
- Butter Chicken
- Chicken Biryani
- Breaded Chicken
- BBQ Chicken
- Chicken Pot Pie
- Chicken on Pizza, BBQ, Parmesan, Maybe Fajita, Maybe California Pizza Style
- Tortilla Soup
- Chicken Sandwich
- Chicken Salad Sandwich
- Pulled Chicken Sandwich
- Cesar Salad
- Chicken Noodle Soup
- Lettuce Wraps
- Chicken and Mash Potatoes
- Kids in Kitchens
- Corn Chowder with Shredded Chicken
- White Chili
- Chicken and Waffles
- Chicken Sharwma
- Chicken Mole
- Chicken Peprikash
- Chicken in Ramen
- Chicken Carbonara
- Chicken Casserole
Innovative Replacements
Fusion ideas
Traditional Recipes
Additions
Take these ideas and search online or ask AI. Might be worth asking AI to make the recipe low cost and fast. If you can make any of these recipes in under 4 minutes, send me an email at michaelkirk@efficiencyiseverything.com
Pleasure Duration Per Calorie, 7.5 Minute Per Day Bodybuilding, 60s French Toast, and more
This is the complete output of 2024’s studies and ideas. Enjoy.
News
Efficiency Is Everything is looking for a part time Website Director, responsible for legwork on articles, books, webpages. You will have a chance to research your own Life Industrial Engineering studies. Looking for an Efficiency Is Everything fan with MBA or equivalent. Email michaelkirk@efficiencyiseverything.com
Where have I been? Programming automations. It is more Economically Efficient than Industrial Engineering. I have more money now. Hopefully that can explain the Website Director posting above.
I continue to automatically think and study Life/Home efficiency. I have been trying to make 60 second meals and optimize Pleasure Per Pain. Here are the finished studies for 2024:
Quality of Life
Pleasure Duration Per Calorie: Comparing various foods and consumption methods to get the most Pleasure per Pain of food.
Time Saving
7.5 Minute Per Day Bodybuilding: Complete an intermediate bodybuilding program in minutes a day, get healthy, get good-looking, make more money.
Fastest Ways To Lose Weight: Compare Fasting to Exercise, no magic here, just calories burned per day. It makes me want to fast and exercise, but not waste time on walks while eating at maintenance. Goal is to be miserable for fewer days.
Automatic Fish Tank Cleaners: Plants. I can attest to this being a 5/5 quality of life improvement if you are a fish tank owner.
ChatGPT to Save Time: Personalize diet choices, plan parties and decorations, and get quick feedback on low stakes professional questions.
60 second ‘French Toast’: I was told I’m not allowed to call this French Toast, but once you dump syrup on it, does it matter?
Save Money
Thrift Store (Date Night) To Save Money on Clothes: Need clothes but don’t have the time? Have a partner that would enjoy the surprise of finding a cool piece of clothing? Want to save money? Friday Night Thrift Shopping.
Buy Nothing Facebook: For Free, my wife has cleaned and cluttered our home, gotten clothes, Halloween outfits, and more from Buy Nothing. This one is from Mrs. Efficiency, Dr. Mandy Kirk.
Onto 2025
My biggest ask is to tell your friends about Efficiency Is Everything, or share it. Hopefully that is easier than spending money. Plus you will look super cool and smart for Min/Maxing life.
Our collection of Human Life Industrial Engineering knowledge grows.
Best Regards,
Lead Engineer
Michael Kirk
Pleasure Duration Per Calorie: Get the most pleasure for the least pain
The Epicurean Philosophers advocated for reducing pain and increasing pleasure. I had this in mind when choosing between my kid’s Halloween candy. I could have a candy bar(100 Calories) or sucker(60 Calories). I would finish the candy bar before we even got to the next house. I chose the sucker and it gave over an hour of pleasure, and I didn’t even finish it.
This study aims to find optimal solutions. After completing this study, my nighttime snacks have completely changed. They are less calorie and way sweeter than previous.
Objective Data
It is impossible to get objective pleasure data at this time.
To simplify this problem, we start by looking at only 2 objective measurements: Duration of Food Consumption and Calories.
This next data does not consider pleasure intensity, only the “Duration of Pleasure(s) per Calorie”:
The conclusion here is to eat foods as slow as possible, but the foods more generally:
- Suckers
- Vegetables
- Fruit
Adding in Subjective Data
Do you agree with this statement? “A 5/10 pleasure and a 6/10 pleasure are more similar in intensity than a 9/10 pleasure and 10/10 pleasure.”
Because we don’t actually have pleasure measurements and the scale doesn’t seem to match a linear understanding of pleasure, I used an exponential base 10 to multiply by Duration/Calorie for the next comparison. You can also find Linear, Exponential(base 2) and Exponential(base 10) sortable at this link here.
Exponential(10^Pleasure Intensity)*Pleasure Duration/Calories:
My knee jerk conclusion was: “If you are going to treat yourself, treat yourself”, but that was too simple and doesn’t actually solve the original problem.
My thought was to combine the two pieces of data and select items that showed up on both lists.
Data Based Conclusions: Suckers, Coffee, and Tea
From this brief study of favorite foods, Suckers, Coffee, and Tea came out as most Efficient Pleasure Per Pain.
Give these conclusions, what happens next?
Instead of munching on Apples and Oranges at night, have a sucker? I believe it. I eat healthy the rest of the day, if I’m looking for something in the evening, its not typically for nutrition.
I believe its not recommended more than a few cups of coffee a day. However if you have diluted coffee or interesting teas, you could ‘Chain-drink-coffee’ all day. I can attest to this being a constant source of joy. Its probably the caffeine more than the taste, but I find myself excited watching the coffee brew and happy to burn my mouth on it. Pleasure Per Pain, its hard to beat coffee when you have a caffeine addiction.
Eat Your Food Different For Extra Pleasure
“How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?” Licking food is different than swallowing it. It is time we highlight different consumption methods.
Opening an orange into its peals is going to give you extra length over shoving the entire thing in your mouth. I have cut up candy bars into tiny bites to extend it, I justify as it gives more surface area.
Having a stick on Hard Candy/Suckers allows you to rest your taste-buds for later. You can coat/dip Hard Candy/Suckers in citric acid for a different experience.
You can make your own hard candy, this novelty might be interesting on its own, I’ve had fun making ‘craft caramels’. 1 tbsp sugar + 1/4tsp milk is ~60 calories and I can play with this for 30-60 minutes.
Final Thoughts
While I think Coffee/Tea + Suckers are interesting takeaways, I want to emphasize the general idea here: The ability to enjoy a food is independent of its caloric value. You can find more and less optimal foods.
Next time you are going for a snack where nutrition wasn’t the primary concern, ask yourself: Do you want pleasure? Is this the most Efficient Pleasure Per Pain?
Using ChatGPT4 to Save Time
Some ideas on how to utilize AI to save time.
As a note, this is only tested on ChatGPT4. One time ChatGPT4 was down and I ended up going to Google’s Gemini to do the work, it was alright.
Food
Want to start eating healthy or a specific diet, but not sure what to buy? Ask
I am *insert Keto/Vegetarian/Gluten Free/Low FODMAP*, what can I buy at *insert restaurant*
I am *insert Keto/Vegetarian/Gluten Free/Low FODMAP*, what should I buy at the grocery store this week?
I am *insert Keto/Vegetarian/Gluten Free/Low FODMAP*, what snacks that don’t require refrigeration can I buy?
Ask ChatGPT how to modify a recipe according to whatever you want. I will warn you, this is probably best for seasoned cooks because it can occasionally give bad advice like add way too much soy sauce (or at least that seems far too much to me).
It wins far more than it loses.
Ask it for recipes (No endless scrolling of cooking spam articles!). Include dietary restrictions. Tell it to add extra vegetables. Ask what to do if you are out of an ingredient. Replace expensive/seasonal ingredients.
Party Planning
In moments I can ask:
Give 10 different cuisines I can *insert cook/cater* from and give 3 possible examples of what specific foods and quantities will be needed for *insert number of kids and number of adults*.
It gives a bunch of ideas, no brainstorming time needed.
Then ask:
I want the theme to be *insert theme*, what are 20 extremely easy, fast, and simple ways to decorate?
Finally, whenever a crisis happens, ask ChatGPT for advice, there might be a simple solution.
Watching/Answering Children’s Questions
My kids ask a lot of questions, and since ChatGPT can understand phonetically spelled words, my 4 year old can ask ChatGPT questions. It’s similar to a Google/Siri thing, but there’s a higher level of detail in output. I specifically have a bot that tells ChatGPT that they will be talking to a 4-year-old who spells things phonetically and that the answers should have simple words.
Law Questions
While this isn’t for high stakes things, I feel comfortable asking ChatGPT about low stakes legal questions. I’ll often read some document and not understand a sentence. I could just ignore the problem and sign anyway. I could pay a lawyer $100-$200 to read it. I could ask ChatGPT and confirm my understanding with further reading. The nice part is that ChatGPT is awake at 4am when I am working, my lawyer isn’t awake until 8am and my $100 question is small fries to them.
Medical Corruption
Avoid unnecessary medical procedures, ask ChatGPT before you are billed and waste time on unnecessary treatment. As an example, I had a stomach bug and the nurse was pretty pushy about an x-ray. I told ChatGPT about my symptoms and it thought the x-ray was unnecessary. An anti-biotic later, I feel great. No x-ray needed. (I then listened to this nurse go down the room and ask everyone if they wanted x-rays for any condition imaginable).
Car Repair
Confirm that what your mechanic is saying is true. Ask ChatGPT to confirm everything from diagnosis, pricing, etc…
Bots
You could turn all of these questions into ‘Bots’. Bots are literally copypasting your question/prompt/command before you send your new question. You could do this manually by… copypasting your question/prompt/command before sending your question. For instance:
Always copypaste this:
“You are a master chef and come up with ultra healthy recipes that are filling, high in protein, high in nutrients, and easy to cook. Come up with simple recipes I can make up at home”.
Then type whatever you want after before hitting send.
“I want 3 meals that only require a few ingredients from the grocery store”
Then you get a customized answer.
The ‘bot’ thing, is saving the pre-prompt in the ChatGPT4 system… Yeah, they copypaste for you. Its actually kind of nice 🙂
Final thoughts and tips
I often reply to AI with: “That was a 2/10 answer, give me a 10/10 answer” or “Be realistic, not idealistic”. These really do work, the technical term is called Chain of Thought.
Application is up to you. You will get better at asking AI questions.