Strive for Effectiveness, not Efficiency
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Hey Reader, One thing I’ve seen over the last few years in the productivity field is the hunt for efficiency. It is the idea that when you get things done faster—you will automatically get more done. Let’s take a trip down memory lane: The idea of efficiency stems from the industrial revolution. In factories, it mattered to get more done faster. Thus, the overall productivity rose. The machine could produce more products in less time. When I first got introduced to productivity, I fell in love. It was a glory to get more done faster. It felt like a hyper zoom through the day. There was an issue though. I also worked in teams, and in my mind, it was about the most efficient approach. This was mirrored by my communication. My emails got shorter, they were most direct answers. My relationships started to suffer. I wondered—where did I go wrong? This is when I started to question the idea of efficiency. It is great for factories producing the same product the whole time. Whereas in my life, tasks changed, circumstances changed, and I had to adapt. This is where I see so many people fail. They spend a lot of time optimizing their system for efficiency—when the system has to change because the situation changes. That’s when I discovered the slight difference between effectiveness and efficiency.
Let’s strive for effectiveness over efficiency. Stay tuned for tomorrow when I’ll show you how to do that. You got this, brother! Jowi |
