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What Is The 80/20 Rule?
I mention the 80/20 rule frequently in my writings so I thought it was about time to write a proper introduction to the concept. I believe it’s fundamental to every business person – to every human being – so if you have never heard of this rule, please read on and absorb everything I’m about to tell you, it could potentially change your life.
The 80/20 rule sounds like a statistic and in some ways it is. Personally I’m not a big fan of maths and beyond basic web statistics like pageviews, impressions, unique visitors – and when I stretch myself – conversion rates and split testing, I try and avoid all complex numbers. I work better with feelings, ideas and concepts.
The good thing about the 80/20 rule is that you don’t have to understand statistics to be a believer. Yes it has foundations in economics and yes, it was “proven” using statistical analysis by a man named Pareto, but it is not meant to be understood only by economics professors.
Here’s what the Wikipedia has to say about it:
The principle was suggested by management thinker Joseph M. Juran. It was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of income in Italy was received by 20% of the Italian population. The assumption is that most of the results in any situation are determined by a small number of causes.
Why It Will Change Your Life
Living The 80/20 Way: Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed More, Enjoy More by Richard KochI can’t remember exactly when I was first exposed to the 80/20 Rule but I know when it first really hit home. I was in my local bookshop and I picked up a copy of Living The 80/20 Way by Richard Koch. Koch took the 80/20 Rule and made it his own by writing a series of books on the topic. Living The 80/20 Way fit me well because it discussed living life productively seeking maximum satisfaction by focusing on your passions (Koch has written other books focusing on the 80/20 Rule for business and managers that I didn’t enjoy quite as much). At the time I sometimes accused myself of being lazy for not “working hard” but I realized what I was doing was living an 80/20 lifestyle and in fact probably being a lot more productive than those working harder than myself.
What Exactly Is The 80/20 Rule?
By the numbers it means that 80 percent of your outcomes come from 20 percent of your inputs. As Pareto demonstrated with his research this “rule” holds true, in a very rough sense, to an 80/20 ratio, however in many cases the ratio can be a lot higher – 99/1 may be closer to reality.
It really doesn’t matter what numbers you apply, the important thing to understand is that in your life there are certain activities you do (your 20 percent) that account for the majority (your 80 percent) of your happiness and outputs.
You may have expected me to say that 20 percent of your activities produce 80 percent of your financial rewards, and that is true, there are probably a handful of activities you do each week that produce your income. You can definitely apply the 80/20 Rule to most aspects of your business or working life, however I believe your overall happiness and satisfaction are much better variables to focus on. Money certainly plays an important role in your happiness and your money is influenced by 80/20 relationships, but it is only a component that leads to your overall well being, which should be your primary concern.
80/20 Examples
There are many economic conditions, for example the distribution of wealth and resources on planet earth, where a small percentage of the population controls the biggest chunk, which clearly demonstrate the 80/20 Rule. There are business examples such as 20 percent of employees are responsible for 80 percent of a company’s output or 20 percent of customers are responsible for 80 percent of the revenues (or usually even more disparate ratios). These are not hard rules, not every company will be like this and the ratio won’t be exactly 80/20, but chances are if you look at many key metrics in a business there is definitely a minority creating a majority.
At a micro level just by looking at your daily habits you can find plenty of examples where the 80/20 Rule applies. You probably make most of your phone calls to a very small amount of the people you have numbers for. You likely spend a large chunk of your money on few things (perhaps rent, mortgage payments or food). There is a good chance that you spend most of your time with only a few people from the entire pool of people you know.
I’ll present to you how the 80/20 Rule applies to my life and how I have used the concept, although not always deliberately – it’s just the way I construct my life (for maximum pleasure!) -to improve the efficiency of my output and enhance my overall lifestyle.
My 80/20 Life
In my life I’ve noticed plenty of 80/20 ratios and generally they relate to my core competencies and passions. I really enjoy writing articles such as this, recording podcasts and interacting with other business people through Skype and blogging. In terms of rewards, the two-to-four hours or so per day that I spend writing – when I’m in the creative zone and my best work comes out almost effortlessly – is my money time. My articles and podcasts work hardest to generate income for me, create business opportunities and allow me to express myself creatively. I get the most financial and intrinsic satisfaction from this time.
I expect you could tell me a similar story about your life. During times you really enjoy yourself your output is at its peak. Your passion activities probably don’t pay your bills at the moment, which unfortunately means that you can’t sustain your life by indulging only in what you enjoy. I’ll talk more about transforming your life to a financially stable and personally fulfilling 80/20 format later in this article.
During some times in my life I struggle and waste time performing activities I don’t enjoy or I am not good at. For example bookkeeping is not high on my fun list. I don’t always like managing keywords in Google AdWords campaigns because I don’t have the patience to thoroughly test the variables and track the numbers. The same can be said for things like Google Analytics. These activities are more numerical in basis, I’m not a numbers person so when possible I leave these tasks, along with other activities like programming, graphic design and proofreading to other people, the specialists who enjoy them.
Some of my time is spent procrastinating or working inefficiently doing activities that provide very little benefit. This often occurs when I am tired or below peak physical condition. I sometimes lack the mental throughput to motivate myself to be productive (and boy, my work stinks when I’m tired!), but I’m working on it and getting much better at reducing time wastage. When I’m in this state it’s smarter for me to study – read books and ebooks – because I’m not capable of producing quality output, but taking input – learning – is a good use of time when I am not there 100 percent mentally.
Richard Simpson
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