On Efficiency & Effectiveness

Yesterday I was mentally beating myself up for the amount of time I spend on Facebook. I love Facebook, it works for me and for my business, but I couldn't figure out what the heck I spent my morning doing! I walked into the kitchen & noticed the flashing red light on my Blackberry. I am on a LOT of mailing lists, and an normally quick to delete mass-sent messages, but I am glad I read this one:

"Effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goals. Efficiency
is performing a given task (whether important or not) in the most economical
manner possible.

Being efficient without regard to effectiveness is the default mode of the
universe. I would consider the best door-to-door salesperson efficient—that is,
refined and excellent at selling door-to-door without wasting time—but utterly
ineffective. He or she would sell more using a better vehicle such as e-mail or
direct mail.

This is also true for the person who checks e-mail 30 times per day and develops
an elaborate system of folder rules and sophisticated techniques for ensuring
that each of those 30 brain farts moves as quickly as possible. I was a
specialist at such professional wheel-spinning. It is efficient on some perverse
level, but far from effective.

Here are two truisms to keep in mind:

  1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.
  2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.
  
From this moment forward, remember this: What you do is infinitely more
important than how you do it. Efficiency is still important, but it is useless
unless applied to the right things."

(Email from Dan Oaks at DVO Enterprises)

I am a pro at professional wheel-spinning. If you substitute Facebook with email in the letter, it would be me to a T! I occasionally think about creating a schedule for myself, something that would give backbone to my day when I do not have appointments. After several wadded up versions, I created a schedule for myself. It's a work in progress; I expect to change it as my needs change (and hopefully as I become more of a morning person), but I think it's a great starting point.

The thing I am happiest about is including meditation and reading in my schedule. I LOVE the way I feel when I meditate, but I haven't done it on a consistent basis since last Spring. I am also in the process of making big changes in my business, and being the best ME possible, so I am including enriching business and life books.

Here's my first go at creating a schedule:

8am - Wake up
8-8:15am - Meditate
8:15-8:45 - Make coffee, check Facebook, etc
8:45-9:15 - Read business book
9:15-10 - Shower, dress, get ready for the day
10-12 - Business: Email, phone calls, Quicken, etc
12-12:30 - Lunch and Facebook
12:30-4 - Photography: Edit, blog, etc
4-5 - Introspection & branding brainstorming
5-5:30 - Read business book
5:30-6:30 - Tidy house
6:30-10pm - Dinner, tv, etc
10-10:30pm - Read a personally enriching book
10:30pm - Bedtime

I started the new schedule this morning! I hope it'll make more productive days, and that I won't feel like I've been spinning my wheels on Facebook all day!

No offense Facebook ... I love you, but we spend too much time together.