Useless Efficiency

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all" ~ Peter Drucker

As we grow older and responsibilities start piling on us we begin our pursue for efficiency; we seek to do thing faster, cheaper, and better. Therein we start confusing efficiency for effectiveness. for instance, We have efficiency rather than effectiveness when:

• We read more books but understand and remember so little.
• We share hours with our family but we are mentally absent with work.
• We think that our lives age matters more than what we have accomplished in life.

Effectiveness in our examples would be when:

• We read actively to understand and teach.
• We give our times to our family and rejoice out times with them.
• We think about our legacy more than our fun times. This is not to say that fun is not important but we have to be effective with fun as well by having efficent fun time not excessive fun.

This trap fools everyone including myself. Then the thing to remember is that we must question what we do by asking why we are doing it. Then evaluate our effectiveness by measuring our desired results and if we are not having the desired results then we shall stop being merely efficient and work toward effectiveness.