Lots of people know about the 80/20 rule.

It’s a great tool, but most people only think about it in terms of prioritisation and focus. I’d like to suggest some other ways you can use the principle.

If you don’t know about the Pareto Principle, here it is in a nutshell; Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist, noticed that about 80% of Italy’s land belonged to 20% of the country’s population. He checked, and this was the same in other countries too.

The ‘phenomena’ seems to play out in most other contexts too :

Tax – 80% of tax comes from about 20% of society
IT– 80% of system issues are caused by 20% of bugs
Project Management – 80% of the effective results from 20% of the effort
Businesses – 80% of income is generated from 20% of customers

Consider this, the ‘traditional’ working week is about 40 hours. If you apply Pareto to the week, you have 8 hours. That’s a whole workday! But wait, it’s not one day saved but one day of work to get 80% of the impact/benefit/results. Holy shit.

Let’s be honest, most people, not just business owners and leaders, feel time-poor. Pareto is part of the answer. Work out the vital 20% and delegate the rest (or even consider just not doing the rest).

But I don’t want my brand damaged by someone doing the work at a lower level. Well, how will they learn? How will you ever break the cycle? Again Pareto comes in handy. If they can do the work at 80% of the quality/time, they’re ready for the delegation.

Imagine if the whole organisation did this.

Trying to do everything is a recipe for burnout and fatigue; it’s not effective. (If you’ve not read my note on the corporate commitment trap, I’d spend a minute reading it. )

As you work out the vital 20%, Don’t confuse activity you enjoy with productivity, they’re often different. Most people major in minor things and don’t get the results they could.

Idea – what if you applied the principle but didn’t use all the time to do more work but used it for more life?

If you’d like to get more out of yourself and have more life at the same time, then drop me a message with the challenge you face.