Efficiency: intelligent laziness and the danger of process

I have spent my whole life being accused of being lazy. I regard this as a compliment. Judge me on my results not on the process, I say. The majority of process is by definition wasteful. The task of the entrepreneur is to eliminate process.

Work Smart.

Is it time to recognise that results are not commensurate with sweat?

The ideal scenario for all entrepreneurs should be a 0% effort and 100% result. That means they can expend that energy on something else. Whenever I am doing something the first question I ask is – do I need to be doing this? Is there someone else who can do it better, faster, more accurately than me. Usually this means automation.

One of my joys is finding great new sources of information. I have recently discovered Similarweb – it is the lazy guy’s dream. It is like having google analytics access to every site on the web. It will save man-centuries of information gathering as well as incorrect decisions based on hunches and inaccurate information.

Train your staff to be as efficient as possible too. Judge them on their results not on following any process. If they persist with a process that is not working then stop it. If they are measuring the process and not the result then you need to recalibrate. Ask them what they are trying achieve and if they give you a process target and not results target then you need to retrain or fire.