Efficiency

I think it’s something I can say is one of my qualities. I generally look at something, be it a task, be it a fridge, whatever the case, and find myself looking at whether this is the most efficient approach.

I find myself looking at the things I do, and questioning if it is an efficient use of time. I previously went through as much as our house as I could, and looked at what energy usage was occurring, and looked for as many cost effective efficiencies that I could find.

This saw us purchase a new fridge, for example, because the payback time is short enough, and the efficiency is improved. It’s faster at cooling, uses less electricity, and will pay for itself inside it’s expected life (10 years).

Then you have the time based efficiency. I look at the activity I am presently doing, and determine, is this an efficient use of my time, is there anything that could be done to get me the information I desire, quicker, so that the time isn’t used on looking at existing information. Yep, Google isn’t exactly the best search engine, because they are yet to give an ‘efficient’ query. Finding the exact information, whilst removing all the information I already know, or don’t ‘want’ to know.

I don’t exactly take short cuts if I can avoid them, because a job done well is a job well done, but, I’ll try and trim the fat off a process if possible.

I recall at a previous place of employment, we used to look up stock codes in an excel spreadsheet. Highly inefficient, as the user had to filter through all the information, to find what they wanted.

I created a database, and tapped an asp page, and used some javascript in that scenario to make finding product details, and suppliers a very quick, ‘efficient’ process. I just don’t like to see something take longer than it should. Heck, if I could, I’d hang up a phone call quicker because someone is babbling on needlessly and won’t get to the point – I don’t, because it is rude, but, if it wasn’t rude, I’d definitely hang up. It’s a waste of time listening to someone babble on about how their son ‘Joe’ has done this and that. I don’t really give a shit, just tell me what you want ME for.

That’s what I do, I like to find the fastest path through something, naturally, fast isn’t always accurate, but, if a combination of fast and accurate can be found, then, there isn’t much harm in trying to ensure an efficient use of time / resources.

This brings me to the next point. I took the car through the car wash today, wash all the dust off it. I think they use reclaimed water at that car wash, and I think that’s a great way to ensure the reuse of a item, but, the clean isn’t exactly accurate, leaving a bit of crap on the car still, and I can imagine a fair bit of water wasn’t actually used on the car, thereby being wasted.