80/20 Rule: Using The Pareto Principle for Better Time Management
This strategic planning tool helps leaders and business owners pinpoint exactly where to focus their time, resources, and energy. Plus 35 Time Management Questions!
"People are not at all accurate in self-evaluating their time management proficiency. For example, less than 1% of people’s self-ratings overlapped with their objective skill scores."
The 80/20 Rule: The Pareto Principle is simple, it asserts that 80% of outcomes (or outputs) is a direct result from only 20% of all causes (or inputs) for any given event. For example, if your goal is to acquire 100 new leads, 80 leads would come from only 20 percent of what you did to get them.
The main goal of the 80-20 rule is to identify inputs that are potentially the most productive and make them the main focus and priority. This strategic planning tool helps leaders pinpoint exactly where to focus their time, resources, and energy.
It was first used in macroeconomics to describe the distribution of wealth in Italy in the early 20th century. It was introduced in 1906 by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto noticed that 20% of the pea pods in his garden were responsible for 80% of the peas and later expanded this to economics by showing that 80% of the wealth in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. And in the 1940s, Dr. Joseph Juran, a prominent figure in the field of operations management, applied the 80-20 rule to quality control for business production. He demonstrated that 80% of product defects were caused by 20% of the problems in production methods.
People may not realize that the 80-20 rule is a precept, not a hard-and-fast mathematical law.
It's the concept behind the rule that matters.
And that’s not to say the other 80% input doesn’t matter because it does, otherwise it is a logical fallacy. We’re focusing on maximizing the potential of the 20% of inputs that are the most important but putting the majority of energy there, while simultaneously still steadily putting in the small amounts of energy into the 80%, it just needs less of that energy.
I often find that people end their days feeling like the didn't get anything done or they’re left feeling like it wasn't a productive day yet they’re completely exhausted. And more often than not, people think they have all this time to do things and complete tasks and then go huh I dont know where the time and energy I had went!
I find that the most difficult part people have when attempting to apply this principle to their lives, they’re not quite sure what goes in the 20% and what goes in the 80%.
You should look back on your day and KNOW that you spent your time in the best way that you could.
You can plan but can you execute?
Can you learn how to adjust to interruptions/changing priorities?
I apply this principle to my time managment as a foundational basis for how I schedule my day to day life and tasks. For me, it’s simple as long as 80% of the time I’m living my life in balance without hyperfixating on any one area (work, nutrition, mental, emotional, fitness, etc) it keeps me focused and energetic to put in maximum effort for the other 20% of the time where I’m being disciplined and consistently putting in the hard work that needs to be done towards the goals that I have.
Then I also break it down further an apply the 80/20 rule towards my specific goals for my small business. I divide up tasks between ones that need to be included in the 20% and ones that are more background and be sat in the larger 80%. You can apply this rule to sales, finances, marketing, whatever you want.
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