Illustration: Getty Images
I have a confession.
For years, and like millions, I was burnt out. I went as far as the other side of the world to find the unexpected remedy to burnout — and I did, but I still didn’t quite understand how to put the theory into practice. And all because I made the simple mistake of confusing efficiency with effectiveness. Merriam-Webster would not be impressed, nor would my high school English teachers.
Just as so many books on time management have led millions to believe, I thought that because I was efficiently crossing so much off my to-do list and packing my week with work, I was operating at maximum effectiveness. Yet what I eventually found was that no matter how much I did or how quickly I moved, I wasn’t really getting anywhere.
For all of the little things I had done that I could no longer remember, there sat the big targets and milestones largely untouched.
I was very much running mad on a hamster wheel at what felt like warp speed, but the only thing that warped was my sense of productivity. As a result, my energy was sapped, and in time, I realized that my so-called productivity without accomplishment was not a road to success. It wasn’t productivity at all, but high efficiency, and without forward movement, it proved to be a fast track to burnout.
It wasn’t until I returned to the classic book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — which I had I once read but had since forgotten — that I discovered the simplicity of my underlying issue:
I needed to learn how to differentiate between effectiveness and efficiency as a means of preventing (or treating) burnout and moving the dial toward reaching goals.
As it turns out, clarifying the gray area between efficiency and effectiveness — stagnation and progress, success and failure — came down to fielding choices using a simple question. Only then could I set my priorities accordingly, so that I got more done and stopped feeling the burden of burnout.
Ask yourself if the result moves you closer to your goal
With a growing to-do list, all that there is to do is right before our eyes. And yet, in focusing on ticking off boxes, we fail to focus on the things that will make the biggest difference. And that’s the crux when it comes to knowing how to differentiate between efficiency and effectiveness.
Let’s be clear: Efficiency is going somewhere quickly, but not necessarily going anywhere that achieves your goals. Efficiency is the treadmill of life that leads you to believe you’re on the right track and doing well because, like the famous Energizer bunny, you just keep moving. But that speed and movement don’t necessarily indicate you are going in the right direction.
On the other hand, effectiveness is a time-management tool that can help you prioritize the things that move the needle the most between where you are and where you want to be. So, an easy way of quickly fielding and prioritizing work is to ask yourself if completing a task moves you closer to your goal. Not just whether or not it’s a step in the grand scheme, but is it the next step?
Prioritize long-term impact over short-term rewards
We’ve all heard of plenty of time-management strategies.
Perhaps you should knock out the easiest items on your list first, to effectively knock out your list quickly. Or get the most difficult tasks off your plate first. Maybe the move is to create a daily schedule with blocks of time set for certain tasks.
No matter what the latest strategy says, most boil down to avoiding the time-suck of constantly checking every email as it pops into your inbox or spending too much time on trivial tasks that may feed your ego but don’t help you accomplish your ultimate goal.
The famous 80/20 rule (a.k.a. the Pareto Principle) states that 80 percent of outcomes come from 20 percent of causes. If only a fraction of our effort generates the bulk of our output, what this tells us is that we’re not using 80 percent of our time very effectively — no matter how efficiently we spend it. It reminds me of how Warren Buffett once said something along the lines of “If someone could just work for four years on their own business, they wouldn’t have to work for the rest of their lives for someone else’s.”
It’s human nature to focus on the tasks and work which offer instant gratification, such as crossing off another item on your to-do list or catching that next paycheck. Yet that leaves many of us burnt out from being highly efficient and largely ineffective. If instead we prioritize the work that will get us to where we ultimately want to be, we become more effective, and thus truly productive. As Apple’s ridiculously simple strategy to beat burnout goes to show, when productivity is accompanied by accomplishment, we don’t feel burnt out by the work but fired up.
What are your service priorities
In the world of business there is no priority more important than the customer’s opinion, because nothing happens until someone sells something. We are all pulled in so many different directions that it makes focusing on the customer’s experience a challenging task. The same is true with your frontline employees. Using a mystery shopping service, in conjunction with a voice of the customer survey program, helps everyone stay on track. What gets measured gets done and with consistent / constructive customer feedback, on a regular basis, starts changing your teams customer service culture for the better. We’re here to help. Reach out, lets chat.
Services
KELLY MAIN AND CARL PHILLIPS