login to bmindful Sign up for your FREE bmindful account!

To get the most out of the bmindful forum, please sign up or log in!

★The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule is a time management principle that I do not use enough. Often I just need to get things done, lots done, and I spend hours making pixels line up (literally) This is hardly efficient, and consistently applying this rule would significantly increase the number of items I cross of my to do list every day.

This 80/20 rule is more formally known as the Pareto principle, named after it’s founder the Italian economist. Pareto observed that 80 percent of the income in Italy was received by 20% of the people. How then, does this concept apply to time management? And what about your jeans?

The 80/20 rule applies everywhere. You may find that 20% of the clothes in your wardrobe (you jeans for example) get worn 80% of the time, that 20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your sales or that 20% of your keywords are responsible for 80% of your traffic.

So how does this apply to time management? The 80/20 rule states that during your day, 20% of your work will account for 80% of your the returns on your effort. How can you use this information?

You could try to identify the 20 percent blocks that will give the most return or value and concentrate on getting them done. Do this for all of your projects that day, and your day will be made up of four or five of those 20% blocks that have the most impact! When you have less on your plate, or more time to spare you can work on that other 80% or you can delegate it!

Obviously you cannot apply this rule everywhere. There are things you need to perfect, and it is these things that you need to spend the time doing regardless of how much value you are getting out of your time.

An example, I am currently very interested in espresso coffee right now. Coffee is something that you need to perfect. Most baristas spent 20% of their time on learning how to make a good coffee, can get a pretty good coffee, and stop learning right there.

I want to perfect coffee. All the way down to pouring latte art on the top of my milk drinks. In this instance, the 80/20 rule does not apply. I am determined to perfect the coffee extraction and drink preparation every time. This fits in well with my perfectionist nature.

Funnily enough, it is my perfectionist nature that makes this rule work so well for me. As I mentioned I spend a lot of time literally making pixels line up perfectly. Applying the rule in this situation, when I should be getting on with everything else I have to do, works well.

Take this rule away with you and apply it appropriately. Be sensible, we do not want car disc breaks to only have 80% effectiveness, but we mightn’t mind if a web site will have 80% of the features if it is going to be made available in 20% of the time. The details can follow. Just remember though, you want a perfect espresso every time :)

I would love to hear your comments and suggestions. 

This post was converted automatically from the old bmindful article archive. Some of the mentioned links or references may no longer exist.

“How easy it is in our life, to miss what’s being offered.” — Paul Haller

Yeah I had enjoyed it too when Lee first posted it. Where has he been anyway, on his private island?

Jump to Top ^^

To get the most out of the bmindful forum, please sign up or log in!

Related Content