How to be a More Efficient Employee

With the rising adoption of new technologies, the expectations of employers have changed. Now, employees are constantly challenged to learn new skills/tools to perform various tasks.

Source: Future of Jobs Survey 2018, World Economic Forum

However, many employees find it difficult to eke out the extra time to learn new skills without sacrificing the quality of the job at hand. It is a delicate balancing act between wanting to find better ways of doing things while also completing existing tasks on time.

The key here lies in efficiency. And the first thing to understand is...

Eisenhower Decision Matrix

Eisenhow-what? You don't have to worry about who Eisenhower is, but for the curious minds he's the 34th president of the United States.

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix is a framework that helps us in prioritizing tasks. It forces us to categorize each task into one of the four quadrants.

Intuitively we already know that we should spend most of our time performing Quadrant 1 tasks (both urgent and important), while avoiding Quadrant 4 tasks (neither urgent nor important). The difficulty comes when we're dealing with the other two quadrants. Let us look at an example.

It is understandable that sometimes there are urgent tasks that are unavoidable despite being unimportant. However, to become a more efficient employee, you need to find ways to cut down the time spent on Quadrant 3 tasks (urgent, but not important) and spend more time doing Quadrant 2 tasks (important, but not urgent).

You want to spend your time and energy doing Quadrant 2 tasks which often have a bigger impact in the long term. One possible solution here is to automate Quadrant 3 tasks as much as possible. In cases where it cannot be automated, outsource it.

Another example for software developers:

Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)

There are people whom seem to just get things done so quickly all the time. The secret is that they understand very well that time is a limited resource. Hence, they spend a majority of their time on high-leverage (and high impact) activities.

The Pareto Principle states that 80 percent of the results come from approximately 20 percent of the effort. For example:

1. 80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population
2. 80% of the profit is generated by 20% of the customers
3. 80% of the time is spent on 20% of the features

This principle is particularly useful in cases where resources are finite, such as when allocating budget for projects.

Pair this with the Eisenhower Decision Matrix, and you will have a good gauge as to how you should be spending your time. Use the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to filter out activities that are important, then the Pareto Principle to determine which of these important activities are worth doing more, in other words which activities offer more "bang-for-the-buck".

However, there is one last thing that you need to understand before you become a much more efficient employee, and that is...

The law of diminishing returns

Source: The book Super Thinking by Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann.

The law of diminishing returns simply means that after a certain point, any additional effort does not lead to an equivalent result.

It's a concept that's easy to understand, but very difficult to identify when you're already in one such situation. For example, you've been working on a project for a few months now and it's ready to launch. But you see that there is still room for improvement which could significantly enhance it. In such situations, what should be done?

The key here is to set a clear goal before any work even begins. Ideally, you want to get all stakeholders on the same page on what is "good enough". This method helps set realistic expectations and prevent project overruns.

Closing

The beauty of the 3 principles above is that they are not just limited to work. From simple day-to-day decisions, to multi-year life goals, these principles guide us towards making better decisions.