Effectiveness over Efficiency in Homesteading

Effectiveness is about pursuing the right things and efficiency is doing things right.The right things are worth doing and the right things are worth figuring out.

What’s more important? Effectiveness. You can do the wrong things in a very efficient manner.

As an example, commercial agriculture is extremely efficient but if what’s important to you, is to eat clean, healthy food, then engaging in the BIG FOOD system is not very effective, is it? Let’s be honest, if efficiency is what you are truly after just go to the grocery store and buy your food, right? But that’s not what’s important to us that’s why we grow our own.

Or you can very efficiently build a barn but you realize after a year or so of working with it that you placed it in a terrible location. Not very effective.

Think through effectiveness first before efficiency

Let’s say you have a goal of being able to grow food year round in a greenhouse. You decide you want to have Mediterranean type plants in a cool to cold climate like North Idaho. You would love to grow lemons, olives, figs etc… You set out to meet your goal and do some research. You decide on buying a kit greenhouse (you know the kind that is all glass) that has good reviews and is relatively inexpensive. This is going to be great because the kit comes with everything you need and everyone says the directions are easy to follow. There’s an option to buy a propane heater with an automatic thermostat to keep temperatures where you want them. Boom! Efficiency at its best!

The problem is the all-glass greenhouse kits, are completely ineffective for your actual goal of growing in a cold climate, year-round. They are perfectly fine for season extension but not for what you actually want to do. What you need is a cold climate greenhouse that is well designed, heavily insulated with a lot less glazing. There’s no kit for that and it will probably cost you more in time, effort and money. However, it is effective because it’s what you need in order to meet your goal.

In summary, think through effectiveness first before efficiency. Doing the right things even at the cost of some efficiency is acceptable. Pairing the two is ideal. You can build incredible efficiencies into your very effective cold-climate greenhouse!