Effectiveness and efficiency are two very important elements of time management. But how are these two different and which one is more important? Do you consider yourself an effective person or an efficient person?

When I am shopping online for things, whether buying phone accessories or purchasing flight tickets, I am a wizard in finding great deals. I’m quite efficient in my searches, as I know where to search and what to search for. It’s true that I might have saved quite a bit of money by finding the best deals online. But sometimes it becomes an obsession, and for someone who understands how valuable time is, I am spending way too much time searching for the best deals. When you only look at the financial result, these purchases might have been the most cost-saving (efficient) options, but I often reproach myself for not having the most effective use of my time. Penny-wise, but dollar-foolish.

The above illustrates an example of me being efficient but not effective. There’s a clear difference, base on where you put the value (in this case time over money savings).
Let’s break down the difference between effectiveness and efficiency. Oxford dictionary defines these two words as follows:

• effective: producing the result that is wanted or intended; producing a successful result
• efficient: doing something in a good, careful and complete way with no waste of time, money or energy

As you can see from the definition, effectiveness is more result-oriented whereas efficiency is more process-oriented. If you are a leader of an organization, effectiveness should be more of your concern, leaving the effectiveness to those who are more hands-on in actually performing the tasks. If you don’t pay attention to the effectiveness, you can be the most efficient person in doing ineffective things.

⭐️EFFECTIVENESS	⭐️EFFICIENCY
➢ focuses on “what“	➢ focuses on “how“
➢ concerns about “direction“	➢ concerns about each “step“
➢ focuses on what’s important	➢ focuses on how fast
➢ setting priorities	➢ acquiring techniques
➢ result-oriented	➢ process-oriented
➢ doing useful things	➢ doing cost-efficient things
➢ imperative for leaders	➢ imperative for hands-on workers

Efficiency and effectiveness are closely related to each other, but they are not dependent on each other. This means that you can be very efficient but working on ineffective things, or you can be inefficient but working on effective and important matters. The conclusion I draw for myself in my own world of productivity is: efficiency only becomes valuable when effectiveness is in place first. Therefore, I would value the effectiveness more than the efficiency in general.

How about you? Would you rather be an effective person or an efficient person?