Thought for the Weekend: Use the 80/20 rule to improve your life!

I’m not sure where I first encountered the 80/20 rule but I can say I’ve always appreciated things like productivity and efficiency. If you like to maximize things like value, free time, profit or a myriad of other positives. The 80/20 rule is a great place to start. If you also like to reduce or eliminate problems. The 80/20 rule works just as well in that capacity.

While doing construction and project management I used the 80/20 rule to find and reward my producers. I similarly use it to remove problem causers and non-producers early. When it came to profitability, my projects we're nearly always on top and I did my work in less than half the time most superintendents and PMs were spending. Seriously!

It’s crazy how many things the 80/20 rule applies to...I’m sure there are new discoveries everyday.

Basically the 80/20 rule or Pareto’s principle suggests that in general 80% of results are delivered by 20% of the producers. (It's not always exact but in general it's usually close)

So a few examples:

• 20% of criminals are responsible for 80% of the crimes.
• 20% of the code produces 80% of the bugs
• 20% of a company's customers are responsible for 80% of that company's business,
• 20% of their customers could also represent 80% of their problems (more than likely not the same 20%)

And it’s probably true on Steemit that 20% of up votes are responsible for 80% of the payouts. Or 20% of your posts generate 80% of the upvotes?, steem?, income? Look into it!

So what does that mean?

It means if you can apply the 80/20 rule to your income and the same rule to your expenses. You’ll probably be much better off.

Imagine if instead of making 100% of your income for 100% of your time you made 80% of your income on 20% of your time? What could you do with that extra 4 days if you normally work 5 days a week? What if you worked one more day and generated another 80%? 60% increase in income on 60% less time... I'd say it's worth a look.

The whole exercise is just a simple approach to delivering efficiency. And it just keeps going… the possibilities are endless!

Do yourself a favor and apply the 80/20 rule to your life, your work, your problems.

This is no BS! It's works!

Next Week: Five great ways to stimulate Creativity

(The idea of “Thought for the Weekend” is to examine an idea at a time when one has the time to. The weekend is the free time to relax, do what you enjoy, it provides enough time to think in depth as well as a opportunity to form a very good habit: blocking out some time for thinking.)