For a long time, I thought being efficient was the way to go. Now I would vote for being effective. What is the difference between these words, and why it is crucial to understand their real meaning in your world?

Start with their definition. You are being effective means that what you do is significant and impactful. It influences the environment. Being efficient is all about how you do what you do. In an economic sense, you do it in the most optimum way. What do you think gets you closer to your goals?

In a typical work environment, where people always seem busy, you can survive and get a promotion by working most efficiently – even if you spend time on things that are not important. Work for work. However, if you work on an important task, it is effective – even if you don’t do it most efficiently. The latter will get you closer to your goals. Why?

To answer the question, let’s introduce input and output. If you spend 9 hours in the office five days a week (sometimes add some overtime) and deliver predictably, your input in time is bound to the outcome. You put 8 hours in that produces velocity X. If you add a bit more time, you can deliver 1.2 times X. This is the role model of a modern employee.

On the other hand, if you put only two hours in but tackle the most critical tasks at hand, your output could be much more valuable than the eight hours average. This concept involves leverage into your work. The best possible job is when you are paid for your opinion or when you automate all your tasks to do. The point is to disconnect time from the input side and input from the output.

To make it more visible, think about the Pareto principle. For example, 80% of your results could come from 20% of your effort or tasks. And typically, 80% of your problems come from 20% of the sources. So eliminate that does not serve you or get you closer to your goals and be more effective while you are being more efficient too at the same time.

Question everything and identify the 20% source of 80% of your problems and stress. Once you start eliminating these, you will naturally become happier and more effective, and you will also have a lot of free time. So you don’t need to think about time management anymore.

What are these problems? Sitting in meetings that you feel are unnecessary and an email could have been enough or being involved in every tiny decision. Having a ToDo list that never gets shorter. Trying to do everything by yourself. Most issues come from a broader topic: setting boundaries for yourself and others. We will not discuss boundaries deeper here, but what is vital now is pulling yourself out of the equation when it is unnecessary to be there and automate or delegate as much as possible.

Involve others, empower them, ensure they have everything to succeed, and gently push them forward while you step back. But, on the other hand, always seek simplification and elimination when you do something. If it can be fully automated, that’s the ultimate win, and anything less than 100% is a success because it saves time and effort.

For example, when you plan a meeting to tell some things to others and ask their opinion, it could be an email as well when you don’t need the information right away. Write it up and invite others to reply. It is ten minutes, and you can work on it when it is good for you; no need to fit it into everyone’s calendar and no need to switch the context. It is only a corporate cultural thing that we want meetings for everything. Outside of the office, we don’t live that way.

You can also educate others when you politely as people to send it out in an email because you are in something, but you will read it later and respond. Most of the meetings can be an email chain only.

Multitasking is another significant problem source since it is advertised as a good skill instead of a brain killer. So, when you work on something, be focused and free from interruptions to be more efficient. If you spend two times more with it because of constant context switching, it does not help anything. When you work, work hard on the next most important thing, and you will see how you detach (and multiply) the output from the time you put in. Efficiency kicks in when you already work on what matters and do it in a way that takes only the minimum required time and effort.

It would be hard to imagine the edge when you only work one to two hours a day and are more productive than you were in eight hours, but it is not impossible. If it is uncomfortable, how about halve the time? Sounds better?

You can do it.