Description

• I’m too busy vs. "Attention Compass saved me time"
• If you want to know more about Attention Compass, listen to Episode 22 here: https://dobusyright.com/what-is-attention-compass-and-how-will-it-help-me-dbr-022/
• Or hit me at larry@dobusyright.com
• But I’m too busy
• This leads to the idea of convenience
• Define efficiency: E=O/I (efficiency equals outputs divided by inputs)
• Either increase output or decrease input, but (normally) have to hold the other constant
• Convenience and hurry are close cousins. What's the problem?

• Convenience tends to minimize the inputs and ignore the outputs  – this is dangerous as a sole focus
• Go to the drive through and risk an error in my order
• Convenience – watch out for less absolute output

• Hurry “production” at the other end of the spectrum
• In both cases we lose focus on one side of the equation

• I see this all the time – people naturally want me to think they’re productive
• So they double down on what they’re already doing - "premature efficiency"
• I brush my teeth before I go to the dentist. Is that efficient?

• But engineered efficiency…
• An example (Henry Ford from Cal Newport's A World Without Email)
• At first, workers went to the car
• But, Ford brought the work to the workers
• That was really the innovation, and it led to other innovations,
• None of this was obvious at the time; Ford had to engineer it
• So there's no reason to believe that Ford just said, “Hey, everybody, go home over the weekend, I'm going to install this assembly line, and you can come back and get to work”. 
• It’s the engineering that made the difference, but it wasn’t cheap or easy

• This is typical of the engineering process. There’s a cost
• Things are going to get worse before they get better – the J Curve
• We face the J Curve all the time – it’s the cost of change
• I think both of the extremes (convenience and hurry) avoid the J Curve

• Efficiency is in the middle of the spectrum
• But convenience and hurry mindsets interfere with investment
• And so I think both these things are enemies in the long term
• The challenge is that they disguise themselves as productivity. For real engineered productivity, keep an eye on the math.
• So both can masquerade as efficiency.
• If we’re not watching both sides of the equation we might move the wrong direction

• The negative connotation of convenient is complacent
• We still have to watch both sides
• In modern workplace, we’re probably bi-polar at the extremes
• IDEA: just because its inconvenient in the short term doesn’t mean it’s bad in the long term
• IDEA: just because it takes time in the short term doesn’t mean it’s bad in the long term
• Reduce the inputs (convenience) but hold the outputs (engineering)
• Increase the outputs (busy) but hold the inputs (engineering)
• Argument for that efficiency in the middle ground. 

• Removing waste can be about the inputs (wasted effort) or about the output (e.g. bad quality)
• Identifying and removing waste is a core engineering process
• Waste in convenience is bad quality
• Waste in hurry is bad (frantic?) task switching
• Keeping the ratio the same in either convenience or hurry is an accident
• We’re usually not thinking about the ratio and its easy to mess up
• Thinking about the J Curve is inconvenient
• And
• Thinking about the J Curve takes time
• If you want different results then you can't be complacent and focus only on the convenience, nor can you be hyper busy and focused only on the outputs. 

• But you might not have to do it yourself
• Has somebody else already engineered a solution to your problem?
• If so, you should experiment with their solution, do some research
• We all do this naturally – we Google a solution
• Now, we all recognize that Ford’s way is a good solution –it’s obvious (in hindsight) – so, of course we do it that way
• How to have space for engineering research