ARE YOU EFFICIENT? QUANTITY OR QUALITY?

I wrote recently about the importance of becoming more efficient, both at work and during regular daily tasks. Some of you may have gone for the “efficient pauses” approach whilst others may be using the Pomodoro or the Eisenhower methods.

The subject of improving one’s efficiency seems to have become a regular subject in the media. An article here about software for improving one’s efficiency on the way to work, a presentation about the American GTD (or Getting Things Done) method as well as a TV news item about waiter-less restaurants!

I’ll begin with the software; there are so many apps now that it’s difficult to keep track of what each one does, but there are some whose objective is help people save time doing their accounts. For a self-employed person, this task can be quite time-consuming and/or stressing. While I don’t know the programs mentioned (Kiwiki, Nutcache and FreshBooks), time permitting, I’ll check them out. The ones for becoming more efficient on the way to work or during a journey are called AnyDo and Evernote. Maybe some of you listening to this know and use them; I’ll be happy to have your feedback.

But as you probably remember, my recommendation for the commute is to try and relax! Forget work (if possible), thing about something else and charge your own batteries!

The GTD approach seems quite similar to the Eisenhower Matrix – prioritising tasks, delegating and so on. The results – for some – are very positive. No more emails to read (or, worse, reply to!) at home or on holiday, allowing one to spend more time with the family and/or dong a hobby.

And in my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with that. If the method works for you, then use it. But don’t forget to adapt it to your reality rather than copying what another person has mentioned. And if you do slip back into old habits, don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s normal to make mistakes… try to learn from them rather dwelling on them for a long time.

On the other hand, the French TV news item really shocked me. The story came from the US where, according to the journalist, people have less than 30 minutes for lunch; indeed, people often work through lunch. The concept of the waiter-less restaurant is simple. You simply order your food by pushing a few buttons on a screen and, hey presto, your meal is prepared and delivered to something looking like a medium-sized aquarium. It’s apparently cheaper as well as faster – and, according to the French TV journalist, that’s great for the American office workers.

And if that were not enough to shock the gastronomes of France – myself included – the journalist followed up with something that could easily have been the subject of a sci-fi TV show: how to replace meals with a sort of high-protein, chemically balanced drink! There followed an interview with the highly-dynamic CEO of a start-up who extolled the benefits of this “liquid lunch”: it saved time, people could work during lunch and be just as efficient! No more time being lost walking from the work station to the office-kitchen micro-wave, or worse, to a nearby restaurant!

All these apps and news stories tend to bring up this recurrent issue, the clash of opposing business cultures: high energy concentration and short-term efficiency with the more long-term “slow down to speed up” approach.

If you’re a client of mine or a regular listener to Coach’s Corner, you’ll know that I prefer the latter. But at the same time, there’s nothing wrong either with finding faster ways of finishing tasks.

I would say that the key issue is quality, rather than quantity. How well do you perform is almost certainly as pertinent an objective to achieve as how many tasks you perform; but when you are in the position of client you prefer to spend more time rather than less with your business partner.

In conclusion then, if the GTD method works for you – use it! If you really don’t have time for a proper lunch and the impending deadline you’re facing means that lunch has got to be a quick sandwich (or even a high-tech sci-fi protein drink!) in front of the computer, so be it; but try not to feel guilty about it.

Indeed, why not give yourself some kind of reward the next day – a long break, a proper meal for lunch or whatever!!

And remember that to be efficient means balancing quantity and quality not playing one off against the other.