How To Save Countless Hours With This One Idea
In our busy lives, it’s challenging to stay up-to-date on everything going on in the world, including the upcoming election, the current state of racism and police brutality, the recent sports starting up, including the MLB, NFL, and potentially your fantasy football leagues, as well as staying on top of what’s happening with the coronavirus, family matters, work projects, and career planning. It’s exhausting trying to manage all of it all.
What if there were a better way?
The Pareto Principle illuminates that better way.
The Pareto Principle can be traced back to the late 19th century in Italy, where Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of the land was owned by just 20% of the population. Pareto studied several other countries, and he discovered that this observation was not unique to Italy, but was applicable in several other countries across Europe and abroad.
Over the last 125 years, this observation has remained relatively true, not just in land ownership, but in countless fields and industries. 20% of farms produce 80% of the crops, 20% of investments produce 80% of the returns, 80% of crime is committed by 20% of the criminals, and that 80% of sales come from 20% of customers. In short, The Pareto Principle suggests that 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes, and it’s reliable in far more ways than you’d expect.
While that’s all interesting (or maybe some of it isn’t), how does it help you?
By focusing our time and energies on only the important pieces of each task, we are able to disproportionately accomplish more than it seems like we should.
What’s the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary? — Gary Keller
Throughout the past several months, I have been focusing on the Pareto Principle to stay on top of more things than I was able to before, simply by ensuring that I’m focusing on what’s truly important, rather than getting lost in all of the details of everything.
And I’ve found three significant ways that the Pareto Principle has changed my life.
- In work, the Pareto Principle allows me to accomplish the majority of tasks in a fraction of the time. For example, when putting together drafts of a research report or proposal, I don’t need 100% of the content or ideas hammered out, just the main ideas and the main structure. Perhaps, say, 80%? Instead of this taking 10 hours to produce and finish, the draft will now take me only 2 hours, because I’m able to apply the Pareto Principle and focus on the main ideas, rather than spend my time on all of the details when they’re not yet necessary. This is only effective often during the first stage of projects, as the finishing details are hyper-important in the end. But during those beginning stages of preparation, brainstorming, and drafting projects, make sure to not dip below the line into the infinite details and stay productive. *Disclaimer* Before you start leaving details out of reports and skipping steps in the research process, I would suggest consulting your manager or teammates to make sure you’re all on the same page about what is expected from the work.
- Exercise. I recently purchased a Fitbit Versa 2, the smartwatch that tracks my steps, heart rate, calories burned, and can connect to the Fitbit app to track my weight, diet, and other fitness goals. First off, this has been humbling. Not sure about you, but when I sit at a desk all day, I don’t get very many steps in. Enter the Pareto Principle. I’m a healthy 22-year old male, and I don’t need to be losing tons of weight or building tons of muscle. I just need to stay healthy. I’ve begun using my breaks throughout the day to do little spurts of exercise. Nothing like HIIT workouts, but enough to lose a few pounds and feel stronger. While waiting for Zoom calls, I will get down on my “office” floor and do push-ups, crunches, or squats, depending on the day. I also use longer breaks to go on walks around my apartment complex. While I may not be in marathon-shape, I have lost a few pounds and noticed a difference in the way I feel. Also, people around me have noticed that I’m in better shape.
- When learning about new topics, whether that be racism, finances, or a newfound writing hobby, it’s okay if you don’t exhaust all of your available learning resources right away. I’ve spent time learning on each of these topics, and I’m doing it by taking some focused, intentional time each day to be more aware and learn the 80%.
Your time is important, and trying to learn everything out there can be exhausting. By leveraging the power of the Pareto Principle, you can get disproportional gains from your efforts.
What’s the one thing you need to do? What’s the one thing that makes everything else easier? If you can focus on that for the first 20% of the work time, you can accomplish 80% of the work goals.
What will you do with all that extra time?