I was on vacation the other week with my fiance and his family and the amount of times we had to go to the grocery store drove me bananas. I am a very efficient person by nature. So the idea of going to the grocery store every single day to get food for dinner KILLED ME. By the third day I finally said to my future FIL, why don’t we just plan meals for the week and buy everything we need now? He apparently likes to grocery shop and wants to decide day of what to eat #retiredlife, but it just seemed SO inefficient.
But you see I do that with EVERYTHING in life. I try to find ways to be more efficient with my work, workouts, finances, meals, where my time is spent with people, etc. because this season of life is BUSY for me, as I know it likely is for you too.
That being said, there is a difference between creating efficiencies and taking shortcuts.
Defined:
Shortcut: “an accelerated way of doing or achieving something.”
Efficiency: “achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.”
While they seem fairly similar, I want to point out three key differences.
Difference #1: Fast doesn’t always been more productive
Just because you take a shortcut and do something FASTER it does not mean that you are being efficient and creating more productivity. Take weight loss for example. Sure you can follow a diet for 3 weeks and lose 10-15 lbs - that’s a shortcut to weight loss, but will you keep that weight off is the question? Most of the time, the answer is no. If you follow a fad diet it’s more than likely going to come right back once you allow yourself the foods you restricted again. So what’s more efficient you may ask? Follow a plan consistently over time that includes eating healthy foods MOST of the time mixed in with some fun, less nutritious foods some of the time, coupled with exercise for the least wasted effort and maximum success.
Or maybe that example doesn’t necessarily relate to you, so let’s talk business again. A shortcut may be doing a project yourself really quickly just to get it done, when it likely would have been a better use of your time to outsource it to someone else who has more knowledge in that area than you do.
Difference #2: Eliminating a step does not make it more efficient
Sometimes there are certain steps you just can’t cut. While I am all about streamlining things to reduce the number of programs being used or steps in a process, it has to be done strategically. You can’t just take a step out of a process without understanding the consequences of doing so. For example, some of my clients create custom proposals instead of having a fixed number of services that are applicable to everyone. From an efficiency standpoint it is easier to set up workflows in the system I use, Dubsado, if they have specific contracts for their services + consistent price points. But that being said, some people just don’t. So I can’t just cut out the step of manually inputting contracts/proposals for each client and automating it as that would not make sense for their clients. But what I can do is look at how they are currently writing, sending and communicating with potential clients and optimize those steps by putting everything in one platform, creating templates to work from, etc.
Difference #3: Delegating EVERYTHING
So all of us want to work less and make more, right? I mean that is the end goal. I am all for delegation, but there is a thing as TOO MUCH delegation. In theory, delegation should give you more time back. But if you start to delegate everything in your business in order to get quickly to that end goal of more time, more money, two things could actually happen. It ends up COSTING you money because you over delegated without enough income or jobs coming in, or you over delegated work that people truly hired YOU for. It’s important to note that there is a difference.
First, if you over delegate just to have more time back but you’re not bringing in enough money to pay the people who you hired to do the work for you + pay yourself, you might as well have not taken on the clients to begin with. Or, for example, if you market yourself as a business strategist but you have someone else writing strategies for you, then people aren’t really getting YOU, they’re getting someone else. Now, if you hired someone to edit/review your written strategies, or to help execute those strategies that’s different. That is being efficient, but you have to show up and actually do the work too.
Shortcuts HURT your business. Efficiencies HELP your business. Learning the difference between the two can save you time, stress, money and results! Think about what could help you save time, reduce stress, increase profits and then think about what the things that cause you to waste the most time, cause you the most stress and eat your profits. That’s where you can begin in terms of finding efficiencies in your business. Remember the differences noted here and you’ll be on your way to creating a more efficient, profitable business.
Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.
After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.
Katelyn is also a soon-to-be wife, stepmom, dog mama of two furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.
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