Viswanathan K's Thoughts

We feel obliged/pressurized to be perfect. As Shane Parrish wrote : “Don’t waste time, we’re told. Maximize the output of your moments. Minimize your energy expenditure.” So the opposite of efficient must be bad, right? Wrong. After all: “Inefficient does not mean ineffective, and it is certainly not the same as lazy.” In fact, going way further, Parrish says: “There is real value in not being the best at everything.” Did that sound blasphemous? Let him elaborate. One, there’s the impact that being perfect at something changes has on us, consciously or unconsciously: “ Total efficiency constrains us. We become super invested in maintaining the status quo because that is where we excel. Innovation is a threat. Change is terrifying. Being perfect at something is dangerous if it’s the only thing you can do.” But of course, change will happen: “ Efficiency is great in an unchanging environment, but to expect an environment to remain static is unrealistic. Environm...

Given that everyone focuses on improving efficiencies, whether at a personal level or at work, it’s interesting to know that there are some situations where things are deliberately made inefficient. And not for the slow down to smell the roses reasons, but to actually improve the overall experience! The most well-known example of a system that was deliberately made inefficient is the way the letters are organized on a keyboard (the QWERTY arrangement). Designed for the typewriter era, the idea was to slow down a typist so that he couldn’t cause the typewriter’s keys to collide and jam. Now, of course, we’re stuck with the inefficient QWERTY arrangement because that’s what everyone’s learnt and is familiar with! Even in the realm of biology and life, there are advantages to being slightly inefficient. Like the pathogens that cause diseases. If they were uber-efficient and killed their hosts too fast, then they’d die out (along with the host) before they could be transmitted t...