If there one single rule that you can apply anywhere in your life to achieve maximum effect on your work, to get it done efficiently, it’s this Pareto principle. Named after Italian Economist Vilfredo Pareto, the Pareto principle is commonly known as the 80/20 principle.
The principle is simple. It says that:
80% results are due to 20% causes.\
Vilfredo noted that 80% of Italian land was owned by 20% of its population.
But this is a kind of universal truth. You can apply it anywhere.
- 80% of your marks is due to 20% of study.
- For 80% profit of a company, its the 20% hard working employees.
- 80% of your tension is due to 20% of activities.
Not everything, but just 20%.
Our motive should be to control these 20% causes to get 80% results. That is not hard work, that’s smart work!
If we say that 80% of bad relationships problems we have in our life is due to just 20% of our bad habits. Is it that hard to change ourselves to just 20% adjustable person?
Or let’s say you use 10 different social media to promote your content online. While you will find, only 2 of them are actually bringing audience? That’s actually a fact. A lot of social media marketers are standing only on certain platforms which they are using effectively.
This way, the reverse application is also true. If we can say that only 20% of clients bring the sale, that means, we don’t have to focus much on rest 80%. We only need to focus our resource on these 20% clients. And you know what, these clients are happy because out of so many, only 20% employees of the company are actually providing profits. So you see, how it’s being applied everywhere.
Then why waste time on rest?
Make your life efficient
If you want to change your life, try this simple activity.
- Make a list of 10 things that you actually want to do or change in your life.
- Arrange the list in the order such that: "Which is the single most activity I should do that will bring the most positive change in my life?"
- You just need to do the top 2 out of that 10 things, and you will find 80% of your life has been changed!
That is the magic, 80% of your life will change by doing only the 20% effective activities. That means for the most of us, we are wasting the most valuable asset we cannot replenish, the time. Here is a thing to be understood. Everyone, the successful few and some losers, everybody gets only 24 hours a day. That’s the equality god gave among us. The smart thing these successful people do is that they put every minute of their life to focus on increasing the effectiveness of their life, and their existence. They use these 24 hours wisely and smartly. That’s the key.
Even if we make a dairy and keep a record of what we are doing, I guarantee 80% stuff you are doing is adding no value to your life. Then how can we #achieve what we want? And therefore, this 80/20 principle, even though it is for work purpose, can help us to develop ourselves.
80/20 efficiency makes lives better
Use the 80/20 principle to remove scrap from your life. Remove the nonsense people, activities, and things that are adding no value to your life and work. And focus on what is important to you.
For me, to change myself, If I simply start getting up early and do some yoga, I know it will bring too much effect on me.
Not thinking about the Pareto principle is a mistake. We could waste too much (80%) resources and time just to fix the useless wrong things to bring a little (20%) change. Instead, we should focus on 20% to make 80% change.
Let’s consider a serious issue. It can be easily be statistically verified that 80% of deaths due to illness are due to 20% of diseases. If we are having limited resources, then focusing on those 20% diseases can save up to 80% deaths!
The theory is simple. If you want to increase productivity or anything in favor of you, find the most effective top 20% things that you can do to make it happen.
If you are having a very busy schedule and you want to make free time out of it, you don’t need to cut out every single second. Just find what activities you do takes most of your time, and cut out top 20%. For me, it’s obviously music and gaming I guess.
Whether you want to rise in your career or relationships, apply the same formula. Find 20% most effective things that you can do to make a change. Rest things doesn’t bring much value as they are not much effective, for good or for bad!
Why do you waste time on the things you know are nonsense? Do you really have that much time?
Further Reading:
Brian Tracy wrote a God book about management in everything, called “Eat that Frog”. This is one of the best productivity books you will ever read. A short read, I really suggest you buy this book now. Having 21 simple principles you can apply to change your life.
If you tried this and want to share any personal experience, let us discuss, just comment down below.
Have a productive day ahead :)