(But, wow, don’t those two words look a lot alike ? Therefore, this is a “Hold my hand, I got you,” moment, and I’m gonna do that by using these curvy dudes ( ) in a superscript a whole bunch. Here we go.)

Efficiency (minimizing waste) is the quest to balance the ratio of Useful Outputs : Used Inputs. If you’ve been able to completely achieve the results that you originally wanted from the start, that’s when you’ve been effective (achieve results).

I mean, winner winner mac-n-cheese dinner – cuz chicken is so overrated – if you are able to accomplish doing some thing with complete efficiency (minimizing waste) and effectiveness (achieve results). That’s incredibly difficult to do, especially if that thing has any interaction with any humans at any point along the way.

Whoever came up with the concept of an ‘efficiency (minimizing waste) apartment’, I wouldn’t say that name was effective (achieve results). Sure, it’s an apartment that maximizes the square footage of living space, but if there’s any possibility that more than one human may ever live in that abode then humans were apparently put in the waste column and it makes sense that we now commonly call this space a studio apartment.

Efficiency (minimizing waste) in manufacturing (aka lean production) can be a total bust if the intended result is only focused on the financial bottomline, and/or obsessed with reducing the amount of production time that’s expended, where faster is always better.

Even efficiency (minimizing waste) in computation – the holy grail of algorithms – is all about presumptions. Predictive text is totally helpful, though not always. There’s absolutely been circumstances where I’d give it two thumbs up for being both efficient (minimizing waste) and effective (achieve results), but no more than 75% of the time. And the frustration I feel in the other 25% of the time is :( .

In the course of my research on efficiency (minimizing waste) – and subsequently on effectiveness (achieve results) – I realized that I actually value the latter more than the former. I think that efficiency (minimizing waste) looks at anything that might be filed under excess as a negative, and in that category of ‘wasteful’. Humans can be full of excess in so many ways, yet that excess can be really beautiful or thought-provoking or innovative. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to make a goal requirement without knowing the true value of the human factors involved.

My personal definition of success is the level of impact that I make on other people. I’m definitely prioritizing the effectiveness (achieve results), not the efficiency (minimizing waste), of how I’m doing that — balanced ratio be damned.