The Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)
Who Discovered It?
The Pareto principle was discovered by an Italian man by the name of…that's right you guessed it…Vilfredo Pareto. He made this discovery at the end of the 19th century where he noticed in his garden that only a small number of pea pods producing the large majority of the peas
This astute observation got Pareto's brain churning and he asked himself the question: what if this peculiar distribution was present in other areas of life as well?
The Pareto Principle
Pareto then began analyzing the overall wealth distribution Italy and he discovered that approximately 80 percent of the land in Italy was owned by just 20 percent of its people. This ratio was eerily similar to his pea distribution he observed before, and thus the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule was created. This principle boiled down states:
20% of the input is responsible for 80% of the output
We ourselves can observe this phenomenon in many facets of our lives
20% of the world control about 80% of the income
In a text book 20% of the pages contain 80% of the most important info
You wear about 20% of your clothes in your entire wardrobe about 80% of the time
How Can This Increase Your Productivity?
I'm going to give you 5 practical ways you can use this principle in your everyday life
Make a list of the 10 things you either spend your time doing or you really want to achieve
Now of those 10 things circle the top 2 that will really achieve the results you're looking for
You want to then look at the rest of your list and begin to eliminate, outsource, or automate anything you can
You want to spend 80% of your time on those top 2 things and then 20% of your time doing the other 8 things on your list
Repeat this everyday to dramatically increase productivity
Bonus tip: you can use the Pareto Principle as a construct of time as well.
For example, if you get 8-9 hours of sleep at night, like we all obviously do, that gives you about 15 hours you have to utilize throughout your day. Using the 80/20 principle, your goal would be to get 80% of your work done in the first 3 hours of your day. You know by hyper-focusing for just 3 hours in the mornings, you'll have 80% of your work achieved for that day, which will significantly free up the rest of your day for any shenanigans that may present themselves
I think it's important to mention that the inverse is also true...80% of the effort on the other stuff is only generating 20% outcome. So again, use the 80/20 rule for things you have to get done as well as for your time management.
