Should you do something that nobody else but you could do? 2 →
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A nagging priority

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When thinking about what I should do in my life, I gravitate towards the idea of finding something that I would be uniquely good at doing. There are some problems with this form of thinking, but I’ve found it compelling enough to be an undercurrent to a lot of my considerations in life.

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This is essentially a peak impact optimization for one’s life. I began thinking this way about my own life before I found Open Philanthropy’s criteria for choosing important problems, but I have re-contextualized my thinking in relation to those criteria. I believe they are thorough and are a useful framework for thinking about any type of optimization:

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id:: 62488733-08a0-4890-a122-e93315786257

We’ve sought focus areas that are strong on some combination of the following criteria:

  • Importance: How many individuals does this issue affect, and how deeply?
  • Neglectedness: All else equal, we prefer causes that receive less attention from other actors, particularly other major philanthropists.
  • Tractability: We look for clear ways in which a funder could contribute to progress.
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Below, I would like to translate these criteria to the perspective of an individual’s work.

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