I often get stuck looking for the most efficient way to do things. This is a bad habit.
Inefficient actions are more likely to be credible signals. The traditional example is that it’s too easy to advertise a lemon as a well-kept used car, so we don’t trust used cars (or the people who sell them). This punishes the sellers of used cars that really are well-kept. There is an information asymmetry between buyer and seller.
Another (more applicable) example is that it’s too easy to email everyone we know, so we devalue spammed communication, no matter the content.
Building-in inefficiencies is a signal (to buyers of cars, receivers of emails, whoever) that you aren’t pulling one over on them. The more inefficient your signal, the more credible your claim.
This is why we actually read emails that are personally written to us. It would be too inefficient to write a personal email to 1,000 people, so the author must really want to talk to us. That makes it worth our attention.
Danah Boyd recently had some insights into the usefulness of inefficiency in communication. She’s really smart.
Danah says city planners get it. They build inefficiencies into the system to foster social good. In Manhattan, standing in line is often the only interaction you have with strangers.
Take a minute to think of all the things you might be doing too efficiently.
My beliefs and schooling lead me to take “the economic approach” to thinking. This contributes to my daily struggle to do (against the fear I might do wrong), which is why I tend to spend too much time planning. I try to make my plans hyper-efficient.
My new year’s resolution is to execute more and plan less. Not the sort of advice they gave us in grade school.
[photo via bcostin]
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