Efficiency VS Time Management

Yesterday while I was doing my homework I was having a conversation with my aunt, pointing at something for my fiancé to get, and writing at the same time. This is an example of being efficient however it is not a true example of time management which I was told by my fiancé that I am bad at.

I disagree however she is the boss so is inevitably correct (if you don’t know what I mean it’s ok, you will get it one day).

Time management is exactly that, managing your time. This includes allocating tasks to a specific time period. Efficiency is how much you are able to get done within that time period. Do you see the difference? If you don’t it’s ok, I will explain further through examples.

The first example I have that comes to mind is with cleaning the bathroom or cleaning dishes. You can schedule 100 different things throughout the week which would only leave you with an hour to do the dishes (I clean the dishes after every meal at home) or clean the bathroom. This would be the time management portion. The efficiency portion would be how well you clean the bathroom or how many dishes you were able to clean within the given hour you scheduled yourself for.

Both efficiency as well as time management are built from practice as well as ability. I can be the most efficient person in the world but without time management, I may never get to things I planned. On the other hand, I could have great time management but never be able to handle multiple tasks at once. This leads to multitasking which is a skill that combines both efficiency as well as time management. Knowing how much attention a task needs can only be known through experience. For instance the example I first game about me doing homework while having a conversation on the phone and pointing to something for my fiancé didn’t really take all that much effort. Most of my focus was on the conversation while little was centered around the homework calculations (this was because I already derived the necessary equations and only had to input the values for my variables).

Knowing that I have a wedding to help plan with Lauren (my fiancé) leads me to believe I must have both efficiency as well as impeccable time management so that I can assist her with anything she needs, whenever she needs it.

Remember time management deals mainly with scheduling whereas efficiency centers around how much you are able to accomplish within a given time.