Make More Money By Being More Efficient
It’s one thing to be productive – but it’s a completely different thing to be efficient too!
If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to make more money, or perhaps have more time in order to appreciate the finer things in life than working the whole time, then you need to get to grips with one thing – efficiency.
See, today, many people talk about productivity in terms of being more productive; i.e. producing more output… yet, the fundamental underlying principle to being more productive is having more efficiency.
The dictionary defines efficiency as “the state or quality of being efficient, or able to accomplish something with the least waste of time and effort; competency in performance”.
Think of it this way, if you have to fly from London to New York – the most efficient way, would be to fly direct by private jet in the shortest amount of time possible… yet, for most people it would be a direct transatlantic flight from London to New York.
Now, there might be cheaper ways of doing this trip, such as via Belfast or Norway – yet this would not be the most efficient. Now, that simple is clear and most people get this… but where it becomes a little more interesting is to look at factors such as the airport you are flying into and from, at what time during the day and so on.
For instance, a night flight could work wonders if you have a meeting the next day as you will arrive more refreshed… similarly, if you are flying into London City airport which is in the heart of the financial district, versus London Gatwick or Stansted, both of which aren’t even in the area of Greater London — it would be much more efficient to get the option from London City.
You can also break this down, in terms of price, as whilst the London City flight might have a higher ticket price, when you consider the cost of a train or taxi… it might actually be cheaper to give with the more expensive ticket.
The point being that when it comes down to efficiency, you must look a little outside the box and think about efficiency in holistic terms.
For instance, whilst algorithmic trading just makes sense in terms of being a much more efficient approach to investing, there are other principles such as “work when you’re working and rest when you’re resting” – i.e. to ensure you are fully focused on work for each hour that you work and are fully relaxed and able to rest when you are having down time. This way, you will squeeze much more out of both.
There are other principles such as taking a break in order to come back stronger. Think of it like a boxer, that boxer can’t fight in the ring for hours upon hours – even the fittest of athletes have to do things in rounds and take breaks. Similarly, when they are in the ring fighting, they will often pull back in order to recover so that they can then fight harder in short yet intense bursts of activity.
In summary, the more efficient you become, the more money you will make in less time – so this year, rather than focus on producing more output, focus more on being efficient.