Oatmeal Agitante

If you try things and drop them often you will find optimal cost/benefit ratio eventually.

yeah I'm largely reacting to the fact that lots of available "solutions" are peddled ideologies that require big overhauls

but it's clear there's some middle ground

Actually in this case I'm talking about solutions as-in products/services that you might buy as opposed to 'ideologies'.

Seems useful to experiment and rapidly optimise with money, and not just time-consuming 'DIY' approach.

This is in relation to optimising life. Finding the things that make it better and not being rigid, etc.

Cool, your words were making me think of my engineering work. I agree with your words more in the Life domain

Yes - I think because I do a lot of engineering I'm drawn towards trying to do things myself. That was my mindset.