Productivity = Effectiveness + Efficiency

Talking about productivity, actually productivity is nothing but effectiveness + efficiency. In fact, this is a simple definition of productivity. Effectiveness here means doing the right things while efficiency means doing the things right.

Why effectiveness and efficiency ? Here is the explanation:

1. Effectiveness
   To be productive, of course first of all you must do the right things. How can you be productive by doing the wrong things ? It can be compared to a runner in the Olympic. If the runner wants to be the winner, then first of all she must do the right thing, which is running to the right direction. If the finish line is in the west, there is no way she can be a winner by running to the east, north, or south, right ?Maybe it seems obvious, no runner will run to the wrong direction. But in life, the opposite often happens. Many people run to the wrong direction. Sometimes they can even spend their whole life running to the wrong direction ! What a pity.But how do you know that you are doing the right things ? How do you know that you are running to the right direction ?This is where purpose comes into play. Your purpose is what determines the right direction for you. You are doing the right things if you are doing something in accordance with your purpose. You are effective if you follow your purpose. So the first step here is you need to find your purpose. This is essential. After that, the second step is doing the things in accordance with your purpose.
2. Efficiency
   After you choose to do the right things, now you should do those things in the right way. Again to compare with the runner, after she knows which direction to run to, she should run as fast as possible. For that runner, that’s how she does it in the right way: run as fast as possible.In life, you can use a bunch of tools available to do things the right way. For example, in doing your personal finance you can use tools like Quicken or Microsoft Money. These tools will help you do your personal finance efficiently. Or if you want to collaborate with your colleagues on a document, tools like Google Docs & Spreadsheets can be useful for you. After choosing to do the right things, a lot of tools can help you do those things in the right way.

Combining these two – effectiveness and efficiency – means that you do the right things in the right way. That’s what productivity is all about, right ?