I’m sure most people are familiar with Pareto’s principle, developed by an Italian economist and most commonly known as the 80/20 Rule. While Pareto originally used the rule noticing that 80% of the wealth was owned by 20% of the population, the rule has applications in almost every area of life.
There are many ways you can use this rule. Here’s twenty:
- Work Tasks – Write down all the broad categories of tasks you do at your job. You can make a little table that shows the amount of hours spent at each category (say, 1 hr for E-mail, 1 hr for contacting clients, etc.) and on another column write down a value estimate for what percentage you believe it contributes to your productivity. Eliminate, simplify or delegate low %’s and focus on high %’s.
- Food – Record your eating habits for a week. Calculate up the calories of the different items of food. I’ve done this before and I’ve found it surprising how some treats contribute a high percentage of your calorie pie for no nutritional value, when other vices consumed in smaller portions take up only a sliver but still offer a tasty treat.
- Daily Time Log – Do a time log on your activities for an entire day. Record the stop and start point for any activity. Then broadly shuffle the different activities into categories. Figure out what parts of your day aren’t contributing to either productivity, entertainment or personal happiness and cut them out.
- Reading – Look at the last few dozen books you’ve read. Rate them according to the amount of useful info or entertainment value. Look for trends and use that info to skim or skip future books to save time.
- Relationships – Look at your social circle and friends. Do a rough estimate of the amount of time and energy you invest in each relationship. Compare that to the amount of stress or satisfaction. You might find that certain relationships are toxic and others are valuable and should be invested in more.
- RSS Feeds – Look through your feed list. Write down the percentage of articles you enjoyed out of the last ten in the feed. Eliminate the lowest %’s. You may want to take into account article length or posting rate, but quality is probably the best measurement of all.
- E-Mail – Group the types of e-mails you answer into basic categories. Consider developing a template for the most common e-mail responses that contribute the least potential value for answering personally.
- Magazine Subscriptions – Same as RSS feeds. Go through all your subscriptions and give a percentage scale of what you perceive to be the value of the last several editions. Cancel subscriptions to the bottom and leave the top.
- Television Shows – Record your television watching habits for a week or two. After watching give a subjective rating of the television show. After your done, total up the amount spent on different shows or channels. If you have a special subscription service, cancel the channels that you don’t watch or have little value. Otherwise, consider eliminating live television entirely and recording the shows you feel are valuable to watch later. I’ve done this before and it can be a big time saver while still allowing you to enjoy some passive entertainment.
- Web Surfing - Record your web usage for a day or two. Write down the sites you visited or tools you used to get there (StumbleUpon, Digg, etc.) Figure out sites took up the most time and which had the least value. You’d be surprised how often they are the same thing.
- Spring Cleaning – Although it’s only a few weeks from summer, you can use this on any organization attempt. Go through your items and trash all the items that you haven’t used recently (except for important documents). Just because you have storage space, doesn’t mean it should be filled with garbage. Eliminate clutter and it becomes far easier to find and use the things you actually need.
- Clients/Customers – This one comes from Tim Ferriss, in the Four Hour Workweek. Figure out which customers contribute the most complaints and the least revenue. Notify them that things will need to change and set down some guidelines. Then fire the ones that don’t comply. Goes against the doctrine that the customer is always right, but some people just aren’t worth the trouble they cause.
- Hard Drive – Sort through your computer documents, comparing the last modified date for various major folders. Create a separate folder system where you can move these rarely used files. This will eliminate your computer clutter and make it far easier and faster to find the stuff you actually use.
- Desktop – Same thing as the hard-drive, but I do it every week or two. Just go through your desktop and delete any short-cuts or move documents that haven’t been used in the last two weeks. You don’t have to completely eliminate everything, but it will make your desktop a more efficient workspace.
- Applications - Go through all your computer applications. Figure out which ones are distracting and are either rarely used or contribute little value. Uninstall those. If this seems like too much work, a complete computer reformat can get rid of the trash.
- Home Appliances – Determine which appliances cause the most frustration, stress and break down the most. Once you’ve done this you have three options: learn to use the tool better to understand it and prevent stress, buy a new one or find a substitute that is less damage prone. Save yourself the headache and 80/20 your lawnmower.
- Budget – Calculate all your discretionary expenses (after taxes, food and necessities). Now compare the money value of each expense with the utility of the purchase. If you wanted to compare different entertainment items in your budget, you could value each expense on the pleasure it brought you. If you wanted to compare different investments or tools you could compare return rates or productivity gained.
- Blogging – Classify the types of posts you write into different categories. I’ve done this grouping by, post length, subject, format, style, images, etc. Multiply each by the amount of time to write each type of post. Then compare that data to your estimate of traffic gained from each. Use this as a guide for future writing.
- Habits - Figure out which behaviors (or lack thereof) contribute the most to your life. Exercise? Rising Early? Family Dinners? Use this as a basis for making new habits.
- Goals - It doesn’t matter whether you have them written down or just in your head. Look at all your goals and compare the resources required to accomplish each (time, money, energy, etc.) with the benefits gained. Benefits could be physical rewards, purposeful work or emotional quality. Pursue the goals with the highest value.
Do you have any unique uses of the 80/20 Rule?
I'm a speed-reading, vegetarian, holistic learning, productivity hacking recent university graduate. And, for the last five years I've been experimenting to find out how to get more from life.
[...] Twenty Unique Ways to Use the 80/20 Rule Today – [ScottHYoung] [...]
[...] So, from now on, I will apply some of the tips on how to apply the 80 / 20 rule on handling my daily activities. I will track whatever amount of time that I spend on activities. It’s better to figure out which are the activities that bring in the most percentage amount of profit and stick with it. [...]
Interesting, but you describe it like you’ve discovered ‘perpetual motion’ of productivity. I don’t think there is one person alive who could work out what contributes to ‘productivity’ – and especially not to happiness, friendships, etc.
To paraody a rather clichéd phrase, 80% of my life is probably wasted with no return, but I don’t know which 80%.
Dan,
The 80/20 rule is only a guide, not some recursive machine designed for infinite productivity as yourself and many commenters were concerned I suggested.
The basic principle is that different areas contribute different amounts of value. Sometimes you don’t know which ones are important, but sometimes you do.
Scott,
Awesome List. 80/20 works on so many activities that 80/20 thinking should be part of daily life. Last year, I posted on my 80/20 Kitchen which you might find interesting as I detailed some other sub-rules to determine exactly how to streamline it.
Here is the Link: http://qlog.typepad.com/the_qlog/2006/06/productivity_10_2.html
Thom,
Another interesting application, thanks!
-Scott
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[...] Scott H Young » Twenty Unique Ways to Use the 80/20 Rule Today (tags: productivity tips) [...]
Extremely interesting comments & observations. I’ve been using 80/20 analysis since 1985. I became a true believer early on because of the freaky but, right on the mark correlations. My advice for best results is, don’t over think it. Just use it to focus your efforts where they are going to give you the biggest return on you investment. Applications are only limited by your imagination or lack there of.
hi everyone.very interesting tip this 80/20 principle. what i know is steven covey’s 90/10 principle.
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[...] Genau das tun wir jetzt zusammen mit Scott H. Young, der Twenty Unique Ways to Use the 80/20 Rule Today beschreibt. Man kann die 80/20-Regel völlig kritiklos einsetzen für… [...]
[...] Twenty Unique Ways to Use the 80/20 Rule Today [...]
[...] Einkommens in Italien nur von 20% der Leute dort generiert wird. Bis heute wurde dieses Prinzip auf alle möglichen Dinge übertragen. Der Witz dabei ist, dass man davon ausgeht, dass 80% der Wirkungen von nur 20% der [...]
thanks for the GREAT post! Very useful…
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I am amazed as I read your post just how much time I waste.
I am going through my year end planning and surfed around a lot and this is probably the best post I have read today. This is not just becasue the content is good, which it is, but it reminds me of the hundred or so bad pages I had to go through to get here.
Using this 80/20 rule everywhere is great and I think that if you plan your ideal day you will also decide that 80% of your current day is a shambles and should not be done again tomorrow.
[...] non-freelancers too — to stay motivated about their past successes and set some future goals! Apply the 80/20 rule to your personal and professional life — what is getting you closer to the lifestyle you want, and what isn’t? Focus on [...]
[...] Scott Young wrote a great tip on applying Pareto’s Principle to your Diet. Food – Record your eating habits for a week. Calculate up the calories of the different items of food. I’ve done this before and I’ve found it surprising how some treats contribute a high percentage of your calorie pie for no nutritional value, when other vices consumed in smaller portions take up only a sliver but still offer a tasty treat. Source: Scott Young, Twenty unique ways to use the 80/20 rule [...]
[...] Twenty Unique Ways to Use the 80/20 Rule Today hos Scott H. Young [...]
Good list.
I especially liked the “Daily Time Log”. This corresponds to my principle Do more of what you like and less of what you don’t
[...] Learn to use the 80/20 rule. From Scott Young: “While Pareto originally used the rule noticing that 80% of the wealth was owned by 20% of the population, the rule has applications in almost every area of life.” [...]
Scott,
I have been following your blog entries for quite sometime now and i am becoming a fan of yours.
All,
This 80/20 rule that you are talking about is more like a first-step approach of ‘doing things’ than a refining step for ”doing things’.
There is no point to reduce these ‘things to do(ttd)’ to zero.
This rule can be applied to the list of things only once i.e. the first time. After that, you actually have to ‘do’ things to complete the ttd list.
When you have a lots a ‘ttd’ and not much time and resources, 80/20 rule gives a Quick, Efficient and effective way to reduce the ‘ttd’ to approximate of 1/5th of the original list, which now acts as a good motivator(also) when you look at the list again. Besides that, other advantages are mentioned/obvious.
Cheers!!
Here’s an 80/20 project: a group of orphans needs to buy food sources that will keep producing food all year long (chickens, plants, fish, etc.). But what funds come in at such a slow rate, spread out over time, that they’re forced to eat them in them in the form of rice (only rice) as the funds trickle in. If they could get funded all at once, it would change their ability to feed themselves.
How much do they need? $1000. Yep, a thousand dollars for the whole project. So, if 20 people sat down and figured out the cost of one night out: dinner/movie/coffee/dessert, and gave that amount this week, the project would be funded immediately, and these kids would be able to learn with full bellies, and keep on producing their own food. We’ll never get 100 people to give $10 each. But if we can get 20% of those people (20 people) to give $50 each, they’re funded.
Here’s the project. I know it well, and have given to it before. Care to join me? http://www.givemeaning.org/project/newfutures
or http://www.givemeaning.org/project/newfutures
Oh, and pssst. Pass it on.
[...] should be in the watch list) etc. All these items have the potential of taking up valuable time. It all boils down to time and priorities – if you have that goal – reach it but be aware of the pitfalls of spending time on things that do [...]
[...] Here’s a great post with some ideas on how you might be able to apply this to your work environment: World’s Best Productivity Hack – the 80/20 principle. Here’s another one from Scott Young that’s a little broader but has some good ideas: Twenty Unique ways to use the 80/20 Rule today. [...]
[...] down to explaining several techniques for eliminating time spent at work. Key ideas here are the 80/20 rule – focusing only on those key, high return tasks; managing information intake with media diets, [...]
[...] at Organize IT over the next several weeks (I’ve already touched on it in my previous post). Scott Young has several other ways you can apply the rule in your life, such as with food, reading material and [...]
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[...] H. Young: Twenty Unique Ways to Use the 80/20 Rule Today. Like me, Scott is a fan of doing the most with as little as possible, and here he shows you how to [...]
[...] H. Young: Twenty Unique Ways to Use the 80/20 Rule Today. Like me, Scott is a fan of doing the most with as little as possible, and here he shows you how to [...]
[...] H. Young: Twenty Unique Ways to Use the 80/20 Rule Today. Like me, Scott is a fan of doing the most with as little as possible, and here he shows you how to [...]
[...] Here’s a great post with some ideas on how you might be able to apply this to your work environment: World’s Best Productivity Hack – the 80/20 principle. Here’s another one from Scott Young that’s a little broader but has some good ideas: Twenty Unique ways to use the 80/20 Rule today. [...]
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too many applications do cause a distraction. thats why i look for “integrated” productivity solutions – everything in one place – no distractions. i settled for HyperOffice for this purpose because their web application offers integrated messaging (mail, contacts, calendars, tasks), collaboration (intranet and extranet workspaces, document management, forums, wiki) and conferencing (web conferencing)
[...] a second. We all know specialist, the IT guy, our CPA, or the bestselling Self-Help guru. Using the 80/20 rule in a humorous yet honest way- 80% of all the ego in the world comes from the 20% of the [...]
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[...] your stuff. Use Pareto Principle to start eliminating everything you don’t need (give yourself 3 months for this). From The 4 [...]
its rather interesting to see this model applied to multi-faceted areas such as given above. thanks for putting into a modern context.
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Scott, I enjoyed your post. It is a wonderful example of the ways that the 80/20 rule can be applied in all areas of life. I particularly want express my agreement with you that it is about prioritizing things like action steps far more than it is about the exact ratio.
In my work with entrepreneurs, I find myself often discussing the 80/20 rule. And like your other reader suggests, the 80/20 rule can be applied to the 20% to further develop priorities.
For example if it will take 100 actions to produce the desired results, then 20 actions will produce 80% of th benefit. Now applying the 80/20 rule again, 20% of the 20 actions, 4 actions, will produce 80% of the 80%. So the math tells us that by picking the top 4 actions, we can accomplish 64% of all the work to be performed. That is the process of prioritizing that makes the 80/20 rule so valuable. It helps us figure out where to begin. And often, that one step makes such a difference that we don’t need to take anymore steps.
Shallie Bey
Smarter Small Business Blog
Here’s a great post with some ideas on how you might be able to apply this to your work environment: World’s Best Productivity Hack – the 80/20 principle. Here’s another one from Scott Young that’s a little broader but has some good ideas: Twenty Unique ways to use the 80/20 Rule today
[...] a dica extraída do site de Scott Young para entender o que lhe digo – Versão Original / Versão Traduzida [...]
[...] your Stuff Use Pareto’s Principle to start eliminating everything you don’t need (give yourself at least 3 months to do this). From [...]
[...] 20 Unique ways to apply the 80/20 rule [...]
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