Efficiency versus Effectiveness What’s the difference? Efficiency means getting the most amount of tasks done. Effectiveness means working on the right task. Basically, efficient = getting more done; effective = getting the right things done. Peter Drucker, a well-known management consultant, on the misconception of efficiency: “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” Yes, we can and should learn to do our tasks efficiently, but no matter how efficiently we clean out the spice rack, it’s still a waste of time. Before setting our to-do list in stone, we should be asking ourselves, should I spend my time getting really good at these things, if these things aren’t going to get me the results that I want? Realistically, only 20% of our day is spent on the “important stuff”, while the rest of our time is split between Instagram stalking our Peloton instructors, looking up sourdough discard recipes, or searching for loopholes to skip the important stuff altogether. |