Aditya Kothadiya's Blog

A few days ago, I posted my thought on Twitter -

Every single day my goal is to be “more efficient” than I was on previous day. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail. But the goal persists.

To that thought Rajesh Setty (@UpbeatNow) from Life Beyond Code replied me -

@adityakothadiya Effectiveness trumps efficiency – so why not focus on effectiveness Aditya.

I couldn’t argue with him more. Being effective is far more important than being efficient. But what exactly is the difference between being effective and being efficient? Here is what I learned from the book The 4-Hour Work Week.

What is efficient?

Efficiency is performing a given task (whether important or not) in the most economical manner.

Some people do a task with thorough thinking and planning, and do it in a most disciplined way. They strive for optimal way to do that task such that they can save resources. They do it in a way such that it will cause less rework or maintenance in the future. That’s what called doing a task in an efficient way.

What is effective?

Effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goals.

Some people do only those tasks which they think are important to achieve their goals. They know that not every task is going to help them to achieve their goals. Their objective is not to do all the given tasks efficiently, but is to identify which task is more important than the other, and prioritizing them in the order of their importance. That’s what called being effective.

What should be our objective then?

So doing tasks efficiently is nothing new. It’s universal and obvious. There is no option for that. Now the real objective is to filter out only those tasks which matter to our goals most, and then do them efficiently.

What are important tasks?

Our main goal is to list down important tasks first. But we should remember, an urgent task does not mean it’s an important task. Also requiring a lot of time does not make a task important. Important tasks are the ones which we think will result maximum ROI (return on investment).

Conclusion:

Efficiency is definitely essential and important, but effectiveness is far more important than just efficiency. Since there are so many things to do, and there is so little time to do them, what we do is more crucial than how we do it.