The 80/20 Rule: A Powerful Method for Boosting Productivity

A while back, I came across the 80/20 rule by Pareto, which basically says that 80% of your results come from just 20% of your actions or causes. The idea is to focus most of your energy on that crucial 20% that brings real value or results, while not ignoring the other 80% which, although less impactful, can still be important or supportive. After trying to apply this principle for a few years, I can definitely say it’s a solid tool for building wealth. It really helps boost dedication and efficiency in my career, personal growth, and time management by putting value-driven tasks first over the less important ones. So, if you use Pareto’s principles wisely, you can achieve a lot: Minimizing distractions: When you focus on what truly matters, it’s easier to push aside distractions. There are tons of them out there, both online from social media and offline from your surroundings, and they can really kill your productivity. By prioritizing your valuable tasks, distractions drop down the list, which helps you concentrate and improves your overall productivity. Effective networking: When it comes to networking, spotting like-minded people who bring value is key, while steering clear of those who don’t really contribute. Using the 80/20 rule, you can funnel your interactions toward valuable, growth-oriented individuals, connecting with those who resonate with your vibe. It’s crucial to filter your online engagements too.

checking this out very nicely written. I do have a question:  How does one determine what is the more valuable 20% worth the extra time? In some cases it is obvious what to pick. But it other cases what you think is important may not be at all.

Good question. I have often asked myself this. I'd say there is no single formula for knowing the valuable 20%. From a personal standpoint, the 20% gotten from a question which I ask myself and have to answer. The question is, what do I need to do on a task, such that if I stop, it would still run completely or that I wouldn't need to stress myself over? Once I am able to answer the question, that is the 20% because it means majority of the other part would run smoothly. While we can't always quantify what 20% and 80% present, I know that if majority of the other parts are able to run smoothly after doing a smaller part of the task, then that's my own 20%.

following pareto’s principle, if you specialize in a niche market it can result to 80% of your profit already. it’s very important that you find skills that you can use and the more niche it is the more clients will go to you for it. or you’ll only have a few competitors at least for the mean time. from what i understand from the principle is that if you focus 20% of your time wasting it, it will affect you more thsn you think

I've read of this too and it's really a good hit, the problem that makes people think it doesn't work is that they don't apply it correctly. Focusing of on the few things that brings the best results for you has very good possibility of putting you ahead in any medium of application, Mastery is achieved when you've learned to focus on important things and upgrade yourself on it while you do away with distractions even if it comes from within you. It's kind of challenging to apply this principle consistently, the few times I was able to do so, I saw good results from it, this serves as a reminder to me to get more focused on activities that brings more productivity to my career. I applied this to my career some two years ago, improved myself so well and landed a good job in a year, kinda grown a bit lazy after then but it's never late to buckle up.

I think that it's really dependent on what sort of job that you are doing, whether this 80/20 rule stays true. If  you are doing a regular retail job, let's say working at a supermarket - you might actually be expected to stay busy on various tasks throughout the day. They might not be demanding when seen separately, but expectations on productivity and capability from management can often push people quite hard. Even if you're a programmer for example, you might have to think and plan, train in new areas, go to meetings, etc but you'd hope that you'd be spending more than just 20% of your time on the actual work because a lot of that other stuff should really be taken on by other people so you can do the primary job that you're a specialist in. There is a lot of flexibility and I don't think this holds true for many different areas of life.

I would say it is not really that common for most jobs, but it's also fitting for most jobs as well. This is true that it depends on the job you are doing, but I think if you just consider the time you work in and separate those and just take proper breaks, then you will do better. As an example, past 5 years of my life since covid started has been terrible, it is getting to six years I guess, and now I have free time for the first time ever, I got seriously sick, like very sick, but that's better too now. So I think now I have more free time and take the dogs to walk in the park, and now I work better, even though I work less time, I do more work. Because, now I have time to rest my mind and that matters a lot.

You determine it from the results you get from your every tasks geared at productivity, it's kind of an critical evaluation of your activities and being able to spot the very little things that  brings more results to you than others, they're not always a lot of them. The mistake you're making is that you're just picking it instead of allowing a proper evaluation of the results you get from your activities. It's not just something you think up, it's something you observe over a period of time with data before reaching a conclusion. I made the early mistakes of just picking things I thought we're important and failed. You must evaluate processes very well and compare results before you can comfortably point out the 20% activities or entities that gives you 80% of desired results, those you should focus more on and give it 80% of your time or resources while you give the remaining 20% of your time or resources to the remaining 80% of activities that are of little productive value but are still important. Again you should still have periodic reviews since some activities that brings results tends to decline in performance overtime and some that previously was passive would be proving valuable, it's always okay to include and exclude from the list when the need arises. Decisions are made from results and not guesses or thoughts.