In the late 1800’s, Vilfredo Pareto discovered that 20% of the people in Italy owned 80% of the land. This ratio holds true for a variety of phenomena in the world.
For example, 20% of the population holds 80% of the wealth. Fixing the top 20% of the bugs in a software program eliminates 80% of the software crashes.
This idea can be applied to your life very effectively.
Here’s how you can use the Pareto Principle to save time, while accomplishing more:
1. Look at your largest goals.
Bigger goals in life will have many smaller goals that will need to be reached to achieve them, for these larger goals you may not have a clear path or strategy in place, and for that reason you will always want to run them through a tool like Unbeatable Mind’s 20x Target Selection System first.
When you are sure you have selected the right goals, you will want to employ the Pareto Principle, creating an 80% good enough plan.
Often, people spend a lot of time making elaborate plans, but never fully act towards achieving their goal, becoming overwhelmed with details and the desire for having the “perfect plan” before they act, leading to procrastination or even giving up on their goal. You see, success has a massive bias towards action.
Set your 80% good enough plan and begin to act, course correcting along the way.
There is no perfect plan. No plan survives contact with reality.
2. Prioritize your daily micro-goals.
Now that you have defined the right goals and established your 80% good enough plan, it’s time to act.
Consider everything you have to do today or this week. The most important 20% deliver four times as much impact as the other 80%. Unfortunately, the 20% you should focus on are often the tasks you try to avoid. Having a plan or system in place like Unbeatable Mind’s 20x Mind System will help you stay on mission.
- Most people manage to stay quite busy all day but fail to accomplish much. You can bet these people are avoiding the most important tasks. Do everything you can to finish the tasks that will make the biggest difference.
3. Your exercise routine might be considerably shortened, or more focused.
If you’re lifting weights, there are only a few exercises that matter the most. It could be argued that the deadlift, squat, pull ups, bench press, and overhead press are among the most important 20% of weight lifting exercises. Interestingly, a few of these are frequently avoided due to the discomfort involved in performing them.
Consider engaging in a powerful, integrated functional fitness and mental toughness system like SEALFIT, which combines the 10 core aspects of fitness: endurance, strength, stamina, flexibility, power, speed, accuracy, agility, coordination, and balance to 20x your results.
- Examine your own exercise routine and look for ways to make it more effective.
4. Take a look at your friendships and communities of practice.
Which of your friends and groups provide the most support, camaraderie, encouragement, and laughter? You could conceivably eliminate the bottom 80% of your friends and still be doing pretty well. At the very least, consider letting go of the bottom 20% of your so-called friends.
- You are the sum of the 5 people you spend the most time with.
- Look for more friends and communities that are similar to your top 20%.
- Consider the Unbeatable Mind or Spartan communities of practice, where high achieving, like minded people encourage and support each other to achieve their goals.
5. Streamline your life.
You wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time. Just a few activities contribute to most of your happiness or fun. You can eliminate a lot of the excess weight from your life by applying the 80/20 rule to the people, activities, and possessions in your life.
- As warriors and outdoor adventurers, we travel light and fast, shedding all but the most useful and meaningful possessions.
- Eliminating clutter from, and simplifying our lives lets us more clearly see on what is profoundly important.
Apply it aggressively, see what happens, and decide for yourself if it works.
The 80/20 rule can be used in every part of your life. These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg. You can think of many additional ways to apply these principles to your life.
We spend too much time on people, activities, and things that provide little value. We also avoid doing the tough things that bring meaningful results.
Begin today and focus on the 20% that will change your life for the better.