The Solution to Having Too Much to Do and Not Enough Time to Do It
The Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule, states that for many phenomena 80% of the result comes from 20% of the effort.
The principle was named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. In 1895 he made the observation that about 80% of Italy’s land belonged to only 20% of the country’s population.
Originally the Pareto principle referred to the distribution of wealth, but it can be applied to a wide variety of contexts, for instance:
- Taxation – 80% of tax is collected from 20% of society.
- Project Management – 80% of the results are from 20% of the effort.
- Business – 80% of total profits are derived from 20% of customers.
- IT – 80% of system crashes are caused by 20% of bugs.
- Sales – 80% of total sales are generated by 20% of sales reps.
I recently read a great article on this from Forbes magazine called “The 80/20 Rule And How It Can Change Your Life” by Kevin Kruse.
Think about this framework to help you determine what is of vital importance.
What will bring you 80% of your results? The other 20% you can deprioritize, or you can create a different plan to achieve it.
So how can you apply Pareto’s principle to gain more time in your life?
If you are an entrepreneur, the temptation always exists to try the new and exciting.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it boils down to your goals.
Are you trying to grow your current business?
Would an 80/20 mindset help you to stay focused on your business growth and spend less time chasing endless less profitable opportunities?
Efficiency is about getting more things done. Effectiveness is about getting the right things done.
Well-known management consultant, Peter Drucker, once expressed this idea by writing,
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
In other words, making progress is not just about being productive. It’s about being productive on the right things.
The main point behind the 80/20 rule is to find the small things that give you the biggest results.
Here’s a simple way of how to make 80/20 work for you:
- Make a list of the 10 things you spend the most time on.
- Circle the two that truly drive your results. Do more of those.
- Look at the others. Eliminate ruthlessly. Automate or outsource what you can. Press pause on the rest.
- Repeat.
– James Clear, from his book “Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones”
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Cheers,
Jonathan
