The 80/20 rule is one of the most helpful concepts for life and time management. Also known as the Pareto Principle, it’s a statistical principle that states that 80% of the results often come from approximately 20% of causes.
Pareto principle is an observation, which points out that most things are not fair i.e 1:1, where each unit of “input” does not contribute exactly to the same amount of “output”
Other flavors of 80/20 are:
80 % of the revenue comes from 20% of the sales.
80 % of the results come from 20 % of the work we do.
80% of the time we use 20 % of the apps on our phone.
Microsoft’s CEO once stated that "solving 20 % of the bugs would solve 80 % of the system crashes".
How to implement it is real life:
- Planning before execution is the key– Spend roughly 20 % of the time planning on activities you want to do and then 80 % on the execution part after thorough planning.
- Make a list of activities you do daily
- Check out the ones you really feel are critical
- Non-Checked one, strikeout.
- Repeat it a couple of times to gain clarity
Final Thoughts:
Life is not fair and this principle may not be the best strategy in all use cases. A principle of the 80-20 rule gives clarity of thought.
Again it’s an observation 😊
Recently, I came across a book of “The Small Book of The Few Big Rules” by OutSystems. It’s worth a read.
Note: I'm not associated with OutSystems.
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