{"id":2250,"date":"2020-09-14T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craftcoders.app\/?p=1378"},"modified":"2024-08-14T14:27:51","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14T12:27:51","slug":"time-management-doing-less-lets-you-achieve-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craftcoders.app\/time-management-doing-less-lets-you-achieve-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Time Management: Doing Less lets you Achieve More"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

“There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.”\u00a0– Peter F. Drucker [1]<\/a><\/p>\r\n

Effectiveness and Efficiency<\/h2>\r\n

Do you know the difference between effectiveness and efficiency? Effectiveness is the relationship between a goal achieved and a goal set, whereas efficiency is the ratio of the achieved goal to the effort. Thus effectiveness is a measure of usefulness and efficiency is one of economy. This is where it gets interesting because the result of efficient working does not have to be following my set goals (or those of my company) and therefore effective at the same time. Moreover, it often happens that we do bullshit efficiently. Checking e-mail 30 times a day to develop an elaborate system of rules and sophisticated techniques to ensure that 30 of these brain farts are processed as quickly as possible is efficient but far from being effective [2]<\/a>. We often assume that when people are busy, they work on important tasks, implying effectiveness. Unfortunately, this is often not true.<\/p>\r\n

But why does this happen? Two quite clear situations cause this behavior in my opinion. The first and very rare situation is that there is nothing important to do. Now that we have to ask ourselves what to do next we decide more or less obviously, depending on whether I am at work or not, to do tasks\/things that are not very effective. Taking a break or doing nothing is usually not an option because we hate not using time and are afraid of social disregard (e.g. by colleagues). Someone who takes a break while other work is called lazy faster then he*she likes, even if it is not guaranteed that the others work effectively. That’s why we prefer to do bullshit instead of a targeted break, at least at work. But as already mentioned this situation is quite rare in my opinion, because many people are looking for new challenges if there is nothing important to do. The second situation is that there are a few critical tasks to get closer to my (or the company) goals. Being busy is then used as an excuse to avoid these most unpleasant tasks. Effective work fails not because of the amount or complexity of tasks, but by distraction or working on unimportant things. There are thousands of useless things you can do (efficiently): Sort Outlook contacts, cleaning up the filing cabinet, write an unimportant report, and so on. Whereas it is difficult, for example, to call the Head of Department to say that something cannot be done as planned and that a new meeting with the customer is needed.<\/p>\r\n

These considerations lead me to the following conclusion: It is much more important what you do than how you do it.\u00a0<\/strong>Don’t get me wrong, efficiency is something very important. But you should consider it secondary in comparison to effectiveness. So now let’s have a look at the Pareto Law as it is a rule which helps us to identify important\/critical tasks.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

Pareto’s 80\/20 Law<\/h2>\r\n

Pareto is a rather well-known and controversial Economist. He became known mainly through the rule named after him: Pareto’s Law. This rule is explained quite simply: 80% of a result comes from 20% of the effort [3]<\/a>. Depending on the context, you can find different variations of this, like<\/p>\r\n