How to Use the 80/20 Principle to Get More Done in All Areas of Your Life
The 80/20 principle is a concept that was popularized by Tim Ferriss in his book The Four Hour Workweek.
In that book, Tim described how this simple concept could help him to work less and get paid more. Also, known as ‘Pareto’s Law’, the idea is that we tend to get 80% of our yield from just 20% of our seeds. This is literally true in a farming sense where a lot of the work you put in doesn’t actually pay off. But it’s also true in a more metaphorical sense in business. Let’s say that you’re an internet marketer and you work for 10 clients. In almost all cases, except in a few exceptions, you’ll probably find that 80% of your profits come from 20% of the clients.
The 80/20 principle :
What’s more, is that 80% of your stress will probably also come from 20% of your clients – but in all likelihood, those won’t be the same ones! So, what can you do to streamline your business, to get more profit but to work less? Simple: you get rid of the 20% of your clients that are causing 80% of your problems and thereby you will be better able to focus on the people who really matter and on who deserve your effort.
Better yet, get rid of 80% of your clients and focus on just the 20% that are offering you the lion’s share of your profits! Now there is less work to be done, there are fewer emails to answer and there is less that can go wrong. At the same time though, you’ll still be making nearly as much money! Suddenly, life just got a whole lot easier.
You can also do the same thing in pretty much every area of your life. All you need to do is to think about where you’re investing your effort and where that is paying off. You’ll likely find that in all kinds of aspects of your life where are better ways you could be focussing your energy and by picking and choosing your battles, you’ll get more yield with less work. This might mean that you think about the 20% of activities you find most fun. Maybe it means looking at the 20% of your clothes that make you look the best? You can even streamline your home by throwing out the things you don’t really need. Less clutter, more results!
