The PID-optimized Research Lifecycle is one in which persistent identifiers are registered, used, and shared at all points. To be most effective, PIDs would not only be created for the people, places and things associated with research, but would also be collected and used by funders, institutions and publishers, at the earliest possible point in the process. For example; ORCID IDs for researchers would be captured by funders grant application, grant IDs captured by institutions immediately the application is accepted; and so on. In addition, PIDs are not just labels, they have metadata associated with them. That metadata must include other associated PIDs. This already happens with DOIs associated with ORCID records but could be done much more broadly and more completely. Think about collaborators that are associated with grants, or institutional ROR identifiers being embedded in article metadata. This early capture and association minimizes the manual entry of information and maximizes the opportunities for it to be reused.