Why Being Efficient May Not Be Effective
I was working with a client a few weeks back and we were talking about achievement – they felt that they had been really very busy over the last few months, yet felt like they had not achieved very much. This is a common discussion point I have with both personal and corporate clients. Let’s break it down a little in this post.
Before we do, some questions you might like to ask yourself…
- Have you been feeling stressed or under pressure in just keeping up with demands that have been placed on you?
- How do you know when you are achieving?
We’ve probably heard it a million times before – “Being busy does not define success”. In fact many believe that being busy means the opposite of success! I remember hearing a tape many years ago (and I can hear the tone of the voice in my head to this day) where Tony Robbins stated “If you are working 100 hours a week to be successful, you’ll never be successful!”
For those of us who are super busy, maybe we are so busy because we are not doing the right things!
There is a difference between efficiency and effectiveness.
I have attended many seminars and workshops that have touted the ‘golden rules’ for efficiency – how to process manage everything down to a fine art, to shave seconds off of activities because saving one minute a day on an activity you do every day means you will ‘gain’ 365 minutes, or just over six hours!
Efficiency does not guarantee success – all it guarantees is that you do things a correctly as possible. But does this mean you are doing the right things?
Effectiveness is about return on investment. Effectiveness is the measure of how much you are achieving towards a specific end. And while you may be efficient at everything you do, if none of those things you do work towards what you are looking to achieve, you will never be effective.
Does this ring true in your ears? Are there times you are busy spending hours working on a particular activity only to have the return on that investment relatively minute when it comes to achieving your goals?
My challenge for you this week is to apply this to all of your activities. Is what you are doing the best thing you can be focussed on in working towards your goal? Do you even know the three most effective activities you can be doing to charge forward?
Why not write in the comments below your commitment to being truly EFFECTIVE this week? Your homework is to define the three (no more, no less) most effective activities that will provide the most return on your time investment over the next few weeks. Share them in the comments below.
I’ll start…
- Contact new potential clients
- Finish the new content for you – our Living Your Ultimate Life community, and
- Source some professional partners for a new project
What are yours? Write them in the comments below – we can help each other be accountable for our successes.
And once you have these effectiveness activities acknowledged, you can focus on letting go of those activities that were simply taking your time, your oh so precious time!
So, let’s get to it, so you can Live Your Ultimate Life.