The 80/20 Rule and How To Use It
In 1906, an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto observed that 20% of the people owned 80% of the wealth.
In 1937, Dr. Joseph M. Juran observed that 20% of something is responsible for 80% of the results.
- 20% of your efforts produce 80% of your results.
- Stated another way, 80% of what you achieve comes from 20% of time spent.
- What can you do with this information?
- The 80/20 rule is a tool to help maximize performance.
- Helps you focus on the 20% that matters.
- Identify the 20% of your activities that are most important and focus on them.
The One Thing
- We have covered a lot of material on how to become a better time manager in a short period of time.
- But instead of overwhelming yourself with trying to implement everything that we covered, you need to ask yourself, what is one thing that I can do today to help me manage my time better
- After you identify the one thing, you need to prepare your own action plan for implementing it.
- For example, maybe you will decide that before you leave the office tonight, you will review your weekly calendar, and then list three tasks that you want to accomplish tomorrow, when, and in what order.
- You should then work on that one thing until it becomes a habit.
- Afterwards, you can focus on another thing that will help you become a better time-manager until that too becomes a habit.