117. On Efficiency

In our current world, there are so many ways to be efficient, but what do we lose when we distance ourselves from the tasks that make up our daily lives?

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

There are two ways to get from from my mother-in-law’s house to our own. The one any maps app will choose is a freeway that slices through our city, high concrete walls on either side. The speed limit is 65, which in Phoenix means 85 or 90. The other one meanders around one mountain and then another, through a few different neighborhoods, and deposits us at the same location just nine minutes later. The speed limit is 40, which in Phoenix means 60, but I top out at 39.

“The freeway would be faster,” Matthew tells me.

I know this, but the freeway doesn’t give you the gift of spotting the headlamps of the hikers making their way up Piestewa Peak after the sun sets, or the view of the city spreading out and sparkling below us. 

When we’re home, after the boys are bathed and put to bed, once I’ve put in my retainers and Matthew has applied his nasal strip, it is time for our usual routine. And no, this story is not going to take a sexy twist. Because Matthew was trying to find something for us to watch together, and I was deep in a mindless scroll saying “sounds interesting” when  A beautiful woman’s face appeared on my screen. And no, this is still not about to be sexy.

“Is anyone else,” she asked, “obsessed with being more efficient?” My body tightened, but I didn’t scroll past. She continued her monologue: about how she has been waking up at four thirty in the morning and reading management books before the rest of her family wakes up. About the processes she’s putting into place to get as much done as possible. 

Outside our bedroom, the dishwasher was still waiting to be emptied. The chair in our bedroom corner — which we’ve never sat on — was piled with clothes that are somewhere between dirty and clean. My email inbox is filled with messages marked for follow-up that I really, really mean to follow-up on. Sure, I could wake up at 4am the next day and power through it all. She had filmed her own morning routine and it looked beautiful and serene and yes, efficient.

At various points in my life and my career I have tried to be like this beautiful, efficient woman. I did, when the boys were very small and the big kids were in middle and high school, wake up at 5 am to go to the gym before we got everyone off to school and daycare. I have practiced block scheduling, I have attempted batch-working. I have been the first person in the office and the last to leave. I have read self-improvement books and business books and business-improvement books. I have treated myself like a machine: put in the bare minimum, expect maximum output.

I did get a lot done in those years. I nursed a baby while I wrote a book (this is not ergonomic or recommended). I took conference calls on the drive to daycare and hushed the children in my backseat. 

Someone else cleaned my bathrooms. Strangers delivered our groceries. I sent people a link to an app where they could view my calendar and select a time for us to meet without encumbering me with personal contact.

No, I thought as I scrolled out of that video, I do not want to be efficient.

Over and over my phone will try to convince me that I want something else: an app that will have people wondering did she hire an assistant? Emails written by chatGPT, an app where strangers will plan your vacations, book your dentist’s appointments, find summer camps for your children. 

Over and over I click “not interested” even when the tiny capitalist in myself says, “are you sure?”

I am sure. 

I do not want to find the fastest way through this life. I do not want to outsource every household task to a stranger. I do not want to speed through my work to get to…more work. I want to think. I want to walk the kids to school and leave my phone at home. I want to spend my Sunday afternoons disinfecting the bathrooms and re-organizing my books and having friends over for dinner. 

I want my mornings to begin with coffee and toast that our kindergartner burned for me and the chaos of everyone trying to find their shoes because their father had the audacity to put everyone’s shoes in the cabinets where they belong. I want to take my time.