Remo Uherek

Efficiency is often confused with effectiveness. It can be a trap.

“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”

Peter Drucker

You can be efficient in doing the wrong things. You can be efficient in doing things you shouldn’t even do. You can efficiently waste your time.

Too often, I make the same mistake. I’m optimizing prematurely. And not asking the important questions.

Efficiency asks us: How can we make this faster, cheaper, with less waste?

Effectiveness asks us: What is the job to be done? What is truly important? What can we eliminate, automate or delegate?

I re-learned this lesson in AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee. China is often not very efficient, because they move super-fast and over-invest. Yet they are hugely effective, because they get the job done, and fast. Be it high-speed rail, mobile payments, or AI, China is brute-forcing its way to success.

You find the same in nature. A tree that produces thousands of seeds isn‘t very efficient. But it’s effective in growing its population.

Efficiency comes from scarcity. Effectiveness sees abundance. Better to waste some money or resources, than to waste time.

Now I understand why Stephen Covey named his bestseller 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and not 7 Habits of Highly Efficient People. (It’s a great book that I can highly recommend.)

To summarize:

Effectiveness first. Efficiency second.

Paying invoices manually is a waste of time. Instead, I apply the principle “eliminate or automate” to get rid of as many invoice payments as possible.

Whenever I get an invoice, I do a quick check:

• Can I add a credit card?
• Do they offer a direct debit option? (When in doubt, I ask customer service.)

Here in Switzerland, for direct debit, you need to fill out a paper form and send it in. Then you never have to make this payment again.

It’s a simple habit, and it pays good dividends in terms of saved time and peace of mind. I apply this for both private and business.

For many years of iPhone usage, I became a victim of The Power of Defaults. I didn’t question the notification settings. Then it dawned on me: I can change them!

So I did. My new default is inspired by Zero-based budgeting.

I went through all notifications and disabled most of them:

• Sounds? Gone.
• Badges? Gone.
• Banners? Gone.

For messaging apps, I just kept the badge. For calendar and reminders, I kept the lock screen alert. For a few others, I just kept the notification center.

The result: Less distraction, and more peace of mind.

A nurse has compiled the top five regrets of the dying. I have read the summary often, and I also plan to read the book.

I’m drawn to such insights, because they help me to break out of my day to day routine and help me re-focus on what is truly important.

Here are the top five regrets of the dying:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

“This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.”

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

“Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”

I’ve scheduled to read this summary every few months and try to adjust my life accordingly. It’s not easy. But what could possibly be more important?

Recently, a friend asked: “How do you deal with email? I get more than I can handle. Maybe I don’t invest enough time, focus or attention?”

First of all, I don’t have a final solution. It’s a work in progress, as for most of you.

Let’s use the principle of Inversion.

How can we make our email problem worse? We can subscribe to a ton of stuff. We can CC everybody by default. We can write a lot of emails. We can be unclear in our writing.

To improve our email problem, we can simply avoid these things.

How about applying The Regret Minimization Framework?

When you’re 80, will you wish that you’ve spend more time in your inbox? Will you regret responding a few days later? Will you regret having done creative work, instead of being on the email treadmill?

Probably not.

So is the email problem a real problem, or are we making it so? Remember, there are still plenty of people that don’t even use email. They live well. They are successful. They are happy.

Here is what I know: I prefer deep work. I prefer having control over my day. I prefer choosing where I spend my limited attention.

So, I’m learning to be ok with having a messy inbox. I currently have 81 pending emails. Sometimes I take a month to respond.

Here is what I do:

• Every morning, I start with a blank piece of paper, and write down my most important tasks of the day.
• Sometimes, one of these tasks is answering an email. Most days, it’s not.
• I work on my tasks, starting with the most important or most tedious.
• Once my high-quality attention/energy is depleted, I open my inbox and try to clear it as well as possible.
• I’m a power-user of the unsubscribe and filter functions. Unwanted emails I can’t unsubscribe I create a filter for.
• Some emails I simply ignore and archive. The more emails you write, the more you get back. Choose wisely.
• I use “If… else” statements whenever possible to avoid back and forths: “If option A doesn’t work, try B or C.”
• I buried the email app on my phone deep into a folder. Out of sight, out of mind. (In the last 7 days, I’ve spent 2h 25m in the email app. Still too much and I’m working to reduce it even further.)
• When I’m drowning in email, I have to triage and cherry-pick the ones I need to do first. I don’t like the psychology of it. It feels messy.
• I prefer the FIFO method: first in, first out. That means starting from the last one, and plowing through one by one. You start in the basement, and work yourself up. It’s satisfying and clean.
• I use a “@WAITING-FOR” tag for emails where a follow-up might be needed or where I’m waiting for a shipment. This works beautifully and I rarely drop a ball. I review my Waiting-For’s every few days.

Another solution is to hire a (remote) assistant. Someone you trust. Someone who understands you. Once well trained, this could alleviate a lot of email pain. This assistant could also help you with purchases, travel planning and similar tasks. Hiring an assistant has been on my mind ever since reading the The 4-Hour Workweek. I’ve not done it yet, but I’m starting to think about it more seriously.

How to you solve the email problem? Let me know on Twitter.

Ever since reading The 4-Hour Workweek a decade ago I started applying the Low-Information Diet and stopped following the news: no newspapers, no news websites, no news on TV.

The principle is simple:

Quit the news. If it’s important enough you will hear about it from the people around you. In most cases, you won’t hear and miss anything.

This sometimes leads to awkward social situations: Have you heard of the recent oil spill? Nope. The recent terrorist attack? Nope. Did you see what Trump did yesterday? Nope. Did you know that there is a new hot-dog eating champion? Nope.

My attention is the most important resource I have. I’m not going to waste it. For many years, I have done just that. I have read the local newspaper – of the free and low-quality kind – every day. I was a subscriber of periodicals and had stacks of them. I couldn’t keep up. It was a total waste.

Then one day, I quit. It was one of the best decisions of my life.

Today, I’m still far away from a true low-information diet. I’m consuming huge amounts of information. The challenge is to invest my attention as well as possible. I’m approaching it as an investor and capital allocator. Where are great investment opportunities? What is the return on investment?

That’s why I love books and podcast. They offer a great return for me. I also love writing. It improves my thinking.

Occasionally, I have a weak moment and click on a link that leads to a news site. These days, most of them have paywalls, which makes my life easier. Whenever I hit the wall, I close the tab. Done. Thank you dear news site, you have just saved me from another temptation.

To summarize:

Your attention is the most important resource you have.It’s more important than wealth and fame. It’s even more important than time, because it’s depleted faster than the number of hours in a day. You may only have 3 or 4 hours of high-quality attention per day. Invest it wisely!

Here are some examples of how Chinese companies are applying machine learning:

Chinese company Yongqianbao is using artificial intelligence to screen data to determine creditworthiness when issuing loans. No credit agents necessary! Watch this CNBC clip about them

ByteDance (a private company, last valued at $78B) uses machine learning to source and push content to users. Their main product is Toutiao. 90% of their users are under 30 years old and on average spend 76 minutes on the site every day, resulting in 1.3 billion articles read every day. Another of their products is TikTok. It gained popularity and became the most downloaded app in the U.S. in October 2018. TikTok employs artificial intelligence to analyze users interests and preferences through their interactions with the content, and display a personalized content feed to each user. I tried it and had to delete it, because it was too addictive.

iFlyTek is specialized on voice recognition and speech synthesis. Watch how they made Trump and Obama speak Mandarin, entirely generated by their algorithms.

(I learned this from AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee.)

It’s an essential habit for the 21st century. A principle I have to learn and re-learn:

No matter what challenge you have, anything. Google is your friend!

Have a problem with your computer? Google it and find a solution.

Don’t know how to disable the answering machine? Google the manual and get it done.

Annoyed by a tedious workflow? Google it and find a better one.

Need to repair something? Google it and find a walkthrough video.

Suffering from pain under your shoulder blade? Google it and find out what you can do about it. (Been there, done that.)

Never hesitate or ruminate. Challenge? Google. It needs to be a reflex. And too often, it isn’t.

An increasing number of hairdressers and manicurists are giving up their studios in China. They get booked via app and do home visits instead.

This is called Online-to-Offline (O2O), and it’s booming in China. (Link / Link).

Tired of bathing your dog? Hire a dog bather that comes to your home. Too busy to pick up your kids from school? Hire a private driver that brings your child home, and keeps you posted via app.

Are you ready to join this new economy? Or are you holding on to what’s familiar and comfortable?

No matter what you do, at least upgrade your service: give your clients an option to book online, or start communicating via text message or email.

My Crossfit gym has nailed it: all classes are booked via app, and the main communication channel is WhatsApp. Easy and effective!

I asked a bicycle workshop if they can send me a text message when the work is done, as other shops do. “We don’t do that here”, they said. I suggested that they think about adding it. “No”, they insisted. So I don’t come again, I thought. Simple.

Of course, you don’t need to build these services yourself. There are platforms and Software-as-a-Service solutions for everything.

Do the work and upgrade your business, before it’s too late.

(I learned this lesson from AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee.)

Here are ten lessons from William H. McRaven’s 2014 commencement address, which I can highly recommend to watch.

10 Life Lessons from Basic SEAL training:

1. If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.
“If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.”

2. If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle.
“You can’t change the world alone—you will need some help— and to truly get from your starting point to your destination takes friends, colleagues, the good will of strangers and a strong coxswain to guide them.”

3. If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not the size of their flippers.
“SEAL training was a great equalizer. Nothing mattered but your will to succeed. Not your color, not your ethnic background, not your education and not your social status.”

4. If you want to change the world get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward.
“Sometimes no matter how well you prepare or how well you perform you still end up as a sugar cookie.”

“For failing the uniform inspection, the student had to run, fully clothed into the surfzone and then, wet from head to toe, roll around on the beach until every part of your body was covered with sand. The effect was known as a ‘sugar cookie.’ You stayed in that uniform the rest of the day — cold, wet and sandy.”

“There were many a student who just couldn’t accept the fact that all their effort was in vain. . . Those students didn’t understand the purpose of the drill. You were never going to succeed. You were never going to have a perfect uniform.”

5. If you want to change the world, don’t be afraid of the circuses.
“Every day during training you were challenged with multiple physical events — long runs, long swims, obstacle courses, hours of calisthenics — something designed to test your mettle. Every event had standards — times you had to meet. If you failed to meet those standards your name was posted on a list, and at the end of the day those on the list were invited to a ‘circus.’ A circus was two hours of additional calisthenics designed to wear you down, to break your spirit, to force you to quit.”

“Life is filled with circuses. You will fail. You will likely fail often. It will be painful. It will be discouraging. At times it will test you to your very core.”

6. If you want to change the world sometimes you have to slide down the obstacle head first.
“Instead of swinging his body underneath the rope and inching his way down, he bravely mounted the TOP of the rope and thrust himself forward.”

7. If you want to change the world, don’t back down from the sharks.
“There are a lot of sharks in the world. If you hope to complete the swim you will have to deal with them.”

8. If you want to change the world, you must be your very best in the darkest moment.
“At the darkest moment of the mission is the time when you must be calm, composed—when all your tactical skills, your physical power and all your inner strength must be brought to bear.”

9. If you want to change the world, start singing when you’re up to your neck in mud.
“If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world, it is the power of hope. The power of one person—Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan, Malala—one person can change the world by giving people hope.”

10. If you want to change the world don’t ever, ever ring the bell.
“In SEAL training there is a bell. A brass bell that hangs in the center of the compound for all the students to see. All you have to do to quit—is ring the bell. Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o’clock. Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the freezing cold swims. Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the runs, the obstacle course, the PT—and you no longer have to endure the hardships of training. Just ring the bell. If you want to change the world don’t ever, ever ring the bell.”

(Watch the commencement address on YouTube, or read the transcript.)