Daily Inspiration #78
Peter Drucker
Efficiently Wasted Time

Peter Ferdinand Drucker (November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) was an Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. He was also a leader in the development of management education, he invented the concept known as management by objectives and self-control, and he has been described as "the founder of modern management".
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I've got a nice one from Peter today.

“There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.”

Ssssssmack! lol

Ok so I get a kick out of this one.

How many times have we all done a ton of work on something only to realize very far into it that it was completely unnecessary?

I know I have!

What a waste!

The only thing we can hope for at that point is that we've learned something during the process.

It's an easy thing to do really.

You're working on a project, you continue in what seems to be the next logical direction, then something happens.

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Maybe the landscape changes, or your choice of direction was all wrong or even the project itself needed to take an unexpected turn.

Whatever the case, you have efficiently done something now that did not need to be done at all.

This also happens for another reason.

Ever started something you didn't finish?

Sometimes we'll start too many things at once and never finish some or any of them.

Sometimes we will give up somewhere in the middle.

Sometimes we will decide "it's not for us" and just stop doing it.

Whatever the case, we stop doing it.

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Why is this such a big deal?

Well, whenever we start something, it begins to grow.

It builds energy and momentum.

As it grows it becomes easier to keep it going and we get closer to whatever goal we are shooting for.

In the beginning of something is almost always when the hardest work is done.

Once we hit a breaking point we begin to see rewards that finally make it worth the initial efforts.

When we jump from thing to thing like this we are effectively always doing the hardest work for the least payout.

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We are also nearly always jumping out before the big rewards begin to manifest.

I can't agree with Peter more here.

It is useless.

I've done this so many times in my life it's nearly embarrassing to think about.

I've learned a lot from these times but man....

If I had just chose something 20 years ago and pushed until the rewards started coming in, who knows where I would be today.

So if you have started something you really believe in stick it out.

The momentum will build and the rewards will begin to show.

Remember,

“There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.”

Thanks for reading,
Michael David
@michaeldavid

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