2. Efficient versus effective

Working hard is not the same as working smart. Anyone who rushes about all day and still feels behind is often stuck in efficiency without effectiveness. This chapter is about that difference, and about the model you can use to review your task list.

Doing the work well, or doing the right work

Imagine: you work on a report for two hours with full concentration. No coffee break, no distractions, no email in between. You work quickly, make hardly any mistakes and deliver a polished document. Efficient? Absolutely. But if a colleague asks afterwards why you were making that report in the first place, and the answer turns out to be "because it was made last year too", then all that efficiency was for nothing. You did the work well, but you did not do the right work.

Efficiency and effectiveness are two different things, even though they are often confused. Each answers a different question.

• Effectiveness is about: am I doing the right things? It looks at your goal and your result. Does this task contribute to what I want to achieve? Does this meeting deliver anything?
• Efficiency is about: am I doing things the right way? It looks at execution. How much time and energy does it cost me, and could it be done more smartly?

In short: effectiveness is about what, efficiency about how. Effectiveness is goal-oriented, efficiency is method-oriented.

Why the order matters

Here lies a mistake many people make: they start with efficiency. Emailing faster, planning more cleverly, switching more smoothly. All well and good, but if you start there, you may be optimising something you would have been better off not doing at all.

The order is always: effectiveness first, then efficiency. First you determine what the right things are to work on, and only then do you look at how to carry them out as smartly as possible. The other way round achieves nothing. Being highly efficient at pointless tasks feels productive, but it does not bring you a single step closer to your goal.

Working hard is not a mark of quality

The fuller the diary, the more items ticked off, the later you get home, the better the day: that is how it feels, but it is a misleading yardstick. The question at the end of your day is not how much you have cleared, but whether you have done the things that really mattered. Sometimes that is one conversation, one decision or one well-considered note. A short day with three crucial tasks can deliver more than a long day with thirty small ones.

The ABC analysis

Not every task on your list carries the same weight. Some jobs deliver a great deal, others mainly cost time. The ABC analysis makes that distinction clear, even before you start planning. You divide your tasks into three categories, with each letter standing for a combination of the share of your time and the share of your result.

A tasks are your top priorities. They take up about 15 per cent of your time and account for around 65 per cent of your result. These are the tasks you are judged on, where your expertise makes the difference and which only you can do: the client meeting you want to prepare for properly, the quotation that a large assignment hinges on, that one decision you have been putting off for weeks. They are often the harder jobs, because they require thinking. That is precisely why they deserve your best hours.

B tasks sit in the middle: roughly 20 per cent of your time, roughly 20 per cent of your result. This is regular work. Consulting colleagues, standard reporting, recurring appointments, updating files. It is simply part of the job. The only question is whether you should be the one doing it. Some of it can be delegated perfectly well, and the rest goes faster if you bundle it: ten emails in one block takes less time than switching ten times.

C tasks are the silent time-eaters. They sometimes take up as much as 65 per cent of your time, while delivering only 15 per cent of your result. The colleague who just wants to ask something, an email that was not meant for you, a meeting where you add nothing, tidying up what has already been tidied. C tasks feel pleasant: they are small, manageable and give you the sense that you are making progress. That is why many people take refuge in them when an A task is actually waiting for them.

The order is where the gain is

The power of the analysis lies in that skewed ratio: your biggest result comes from your smallest investment of time, provided you spend that time on the right tasks. In practice it often works the other way round. You start with C because it is simple, you do some B because colleagues ask for it, and by the end of the day you have no time, energy or focus left for A.

The shift lies in the order. Schedule your A tasks for the time of day when you are sharpest, usually the morning. Set aside a fixed block for B work, after lunch for example. And make an agreement with yourself that C tasks may only be done in between, or in a short block at the end of the day.

Summary

• Effectiveness is about what you do, efficiency about how you do it.
• The order is always effectiveness first, then efficiency. Being fast at pointless work gets you nowhere.
• Being busy is not a measure. The question is what you have achieved, not how much you have cleared away.
• A tasks: about 15 per cent of your time, 65 per cent of your result. Only you can do them.
• B tasks: roughly 20 to 20. Regular work, partly to be delegated or bundled.
• C tasks: up to 65 per cent of your time, 15 per cent of your result. They feel productive but deliver little.
• Schedule A for your sharpest hours, B in a fixed block and keep C short.