What is Efficiency? Here are 3 Principles

“Efficiency” is one of the most well-established buzzwords in the world – and particularly in the professional world.

Everyone knows that it’s important to “be more efficient” with various processes and routines, to practice efficiency in time management, and to “reduce waste” (which is more or less a synonym for “being efficient with resources.”)

But, when all is said and done, what does it actually mean to be “efficient” in a general sense, and how can we meaningfully pursue that efficiency?

Here are a few “rules for efficiency” to clarify and simplify things.

Wherever possible, try to kill two (or more) birds with one stone

It may be that you need to resolve a power supply issue in your business, that you need to take steps to improve the ability of your employees to work in an undistracted environment, and have to structure your business so as to make it versatile and easy to move from one location to the next in a hurry.

You could certainly try and tackle all of these issues one by one – and to some degree you will have to. But, you could also try to ensure that every solution you come up with helps to resolve as many other issues as possible. In the examples given above, you could use a silent generator in order to kill three birds with one stone – or at least, to go quite long way towards killing all three.

The first principle for “efficiency” is to always try to kill two or more birds with one stone.  Try to ensure that every action you undertake goes as far as possible, and resolves many potential issues as possible.

Always ask yourself “how can I do less work, without suffering?”

People tend to glorify hard work, and that’s understandable. At times in our lives we all have to endure difficulty and hardship, and work hard in order to achieve the things we want to achieve. That isn’t very easy or comfortable, so it’s natural to respect those who manage to do it well.

When it comes to efficiency, though, a key principle should be to try and avoid work as much as possible, without suffering unduly as a result.

If you want to make your business more efficient, always ask yourself “how can I do less work here, without making things worse?” If you can find a way of spending less time and energy on a given task, without significantly reducing the quality of your product, or acting unethically, then you’ve discovered a great opportunity for efficiency.

Try to structure your life and schedule so that you’re only doing things you like (or at least, don’t mind)

In practice, no one really gets to exclusively do things that they like, at all times. There will always be undesirable chores to deal with, and rough patches that need to be got through.

The people who are most successful in business, however, also tend to be those who are really good at structuring their lives and schedules to eliminate as many of the things they hate doing as possible – so that they can focus the bulk of their time and energy on what they actually enjoy doing.

This isn’t just a “feelgood” thing, either. When you spend more of your time doing things you enjoy and care about, you’re likely to perform better, get your work done faster and to a higher standard, and to be more resilient in the face of setbacks. In other words, you’ll be more efficient.