In my younger days, I worked much longer hours and mistook productivity for running faster and longer. While I still believe peak performance is not possible without hard work, I’ve grown to understand the more important dimensions of productivity. Refining this understanding drives much more impact that is commensurate with effort.

Efficiency is about doing things quickly and with minimal waste. Given finite hours in a day, it’s the ability to streamline processes, reduce downtime, and maximize output within the constraints of time and energy. It’s the ability to activate from inertia and recover from distraction, to endure and execute for long periods, and to intensely focus on resolving the task at hand.

Effectiveness is about doing things that provide leverage: achieving maximum impact per unit of work. What you do is much more important than how you well you do it. Imagine archery: efficiency is like shooting arrows rapidly but not aiming precisely or at all. Effectiveness is akin to taking the time to identify the target, aim carefully and hit the bullseye. How many arrows you shoot is irrelevant.

Strategy is the essence of long-term planning and foresight. It’s the higher order of effectiveness. This is about understanding the broader indicators and predictors of what causes effectiveness. It can be market trends, personal and professional development (convexity), or building a network. To build on the archery analogy, it’s about understanding strength, form, wind, or finding a mentor or even the awareness that this is the wrong sport to be in. Envisioning the cause and effect can compound effort into leverage.

Obviously there are many more nuances within and beyond each dimension to maximize impact, but I believe these three dimensions form a balanced framework on fundamentals of output.