The problem of scheduling life like a spreadsheet

Highly ambitious individuals often have lots of going on in their mind - they want to get things done, train hard, eat well, maintain social life (scientifically this can excel productivity), build relationships and push their limits.

And what do they do? They optimize. But then it doesn't work, and it sucks. But why?

While optimizing processes like cooking and cleaning can save time and make it look like your schedule is perfectly balanced (X hours working out, Y hours of social life, Z hours of rest...) this doesn't scale, neither work long-term, but why?

The concept of Allostatic Load explains it - it's the mental stress, the every day pressure, and the physical load - all combined. It's important to understand that all of this variables add up in your system and you need to recover from all of it, not just from your training. That's why during example periods its natural to cut back on social life - so students can carry more load to focus on exam. The same applies to startup founders, prior board meeting their cognitive bandwidth and stress load may be maxed out, and this time may not be the healthiest for certain personal or work decisions.

TLDR; It's important to manage your total life stress, so you can actually recover and then perform when it matters.