Effective vs. Efficient

You need to be more EFFICIENT!

You need to get things done FASTER!

And you need to get them done CHEAPER!

Because time is money!

Efficiency! Efficiency! Efficiency!

It's not just for car fuel anymore.

Everyone wants to be more efficient - both in their professional and personal lives.

And you have all these tools that make you more efficient than ever.

Email, cell phones, Skype, automated calendars with automated reminders, elliptical machines, exercise apps, protein bars, voice-activation, pedometers, SeamlessWeb...

You are just surrounded by reminders that whatever you're doing could be done more efficiently.

And since time and money are both scarce, you want to be more efficient.

So you run around all day using all these tools of efficiency, and multi-tasking - but at the end of the day, it too often feels like you didn't get anything meaningful done.

That's because you forgot to be effective first.

See, while efficiency is doing things the right way, effectiveness is doing the right things.

If you're not doing the the right things in the first place, it doesn't matter how efficient you are at doing them.

A little while ago, I talked about your MVP List - your Most Valuable Priorities list. A list of 3 things (at most) that you want to get done on a given day.

That list is the key to your effectiveness. Those are the right things to do. The things you should be doing.

So STOP for a moment.

Review your progress on today's 3 goals. Review your progress on a few longer-term goals.

Are you making good progress on these fronts?

If so, it looks like you're doing the right things. And it's time to move on to efficiency.

But, if not, then you're just distracting yourself with this idea of efficiency.

In other words, you may be going fast, but you're going nowhere fast.

That's why you feel like you haven't accomplished much at the end of the day.

So stop worrying about speed, and cheapness, and the rest of it.

Start concerning yourself with the small but important list of things you really really need to be doing.

Put down the cell phone and the protein bar and pick up your MVP list!

Become efficient at crossing the items off that list.

And nothing more.

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Speaking of efficiency, here's the next question and answer with sales guru extraordinaire Jeffrey Gitomer, whose new book, 21.5 Unbreakable Laws of Selling, came out yesterday:

Me: Why 21.5 rules and not more or fewer?

Jeffrey: I started with more than 50 laws, and after weeks of study and deliberation, got it down to 21.5 through combination and elimination. These are THE hard and fast laws of selling – and cannot be broken, unless you’re willing to lose sales. These laws form the foundation for your selling success, and your personal success. CAUTION: Reading them once will not make you great – rereading, studying, and implementing them day-by-day will.