Business Buddhism

Increasing efficiency can be fun. I suspect it’s deeply ingrained in our instincts. Say you are washing the dishes after a party. Starting randomly, within a few seconds you might be looking to set up a little assembly line, optimizing around quick, simple and repeat movements.

There are shelves of books about efficiency gains. “Read your email only once an hour,” and “schedule time to think,” might be tips you read. Most are valid techniques. They are a red-herring for most though. Some of the most efficient people I know are also the most ineffective. They are slaves to their systems of efficiency and often have completely lost the plot on what they are working for in the first place. They go home with accomplishments such as:

“I have no unread emails in my inbox.”

That’s fantastic! Here’s your lollipop as a reward.

Efficiency goals that are dependent on external events are the worst. “No unanswered emails in my inbox at the end of the day,” sounds like a worthy goal of responsiveness. The consequence of it is that you lose all control over where you are allocating your time – you are reflexively reacting to an unfiltered onslaught – any asshole takes your time.

If you are finding yourself looking up efficiency tips, or worse, you are already caught up in some manic system, I suggest you meditate on what’s lacking in your motivation and your clarity about your goals.

Efficiency is worthy, if it makes you more effective. If you are clear on your mission, efficiency comes about organically. Everything sorts itself naturally into an order against the question “how does it support my objective?”

Tagged: alignment, effectiveness, efficiency, goals, integrity, meditate, mission

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