Dear All
The following extract had been taken from
My Dad has had a saying by Peter Drucker taped to his computer monitor.
He has had it for years. The card it is on is old and yellow, I can even see where he messed up when he typed it and had to type over the mistake.
“You are efficient when you do things right. You are effective when you do the right thing.”
My Dad is one of the most efficient and effective workers I have ever known. I love this saying. I have started asking myself this question when I am working on a project.
Sometimes I’m efficient, sometimes I’m effective. And yes, sometimes, I’m neither. Which one are you? Are you efficient? Are you effective? Are you both? Is one of these things more important than the other?
I think it probably depends on what you are doing.
If you need to get a lot of things done it is probably more important to be efficient. If you have one or just a few very important things to get done, effectiveness is probably more important.
Take time and examine your tasks and decide which you need to be, do you need to be efficient or do you need to be effective?
Then structure your work or your day to meet your “eff” goal. A caveat here, it is possible to be efficient at the wrong things. So be careful.
A final point. It is sometimes okay to do things that are not efficient or effective.
Here’s an example: It is not very efficient to let your kids help you paint the living room. Its probably also not very effective to let them help... make sure they actually put the paint on the walls and not on each other!
I would argue, however, that letting them help will pay “eff” dividends down the road.
I titled this article Efficient vs. Effective, but I think it should probably read Efficient OR Effective.
It is a simple concept but so very powerful. So what do you want to be?
Efficient?
Effective?
Both?
Decide and go be!
Comments & further reading are appreciated from readers.
The following extract had been taken from
My Dad has had a saying by Peter Drucker taped to his computer monitor.
He has had it for years. The card it is on is old and yellow, I can even see where he messed up when he typed it and had to type over the mistake.
“You are efficient when you do things right. You are effective when you do the right thing.”
My Dad is one of the most efficient and effective workers I have ever known. I love this saying. I have started asking myself this question when I am working on a project.
Sometimes I’m efficient, sometimes I’m effective. And yes, sometimes, I’m neither. Which one are you? Are you efficient? Are you effective? Are you both? Is one of these things more important than the other?
I think it probably depends on what you are doing.
If you need to get a lot of things done it is probably more important to be efficient. If you have one or just a few very important things to get done, effectiveness is probably more important.
Take time and examine your tasks and decide which you need to be, do you need to be efficient or do you need to be effective?
Then structure your work or your day to meet your “eff” goal. A caveat here, it is possible to be efficient at the wrong things. So be careful.
A final point. It is sometimes okay to do things that are not efficient or effective.
Here’s an example: It is not very efficient to let your kids help you paint the living room. Its probably also not very effective to let them help... make sure they actually put the paint on the walls and not on each other!
I would argue, however, that letting them help will pay “eff” dividends down the road.
I titled this article Efficient vs. Effective, but I think it should probably read Efficient OR Effective.
It is a simple concept but so very powerful. So what do you want to be?
Efficient?
Effective?
Both?
Decide and go be!
Comments & further reading are appreciated from readers.