The deadly combo : Pareto's Principle + The 4-D Principle

With thousands of distractions around, things not to be done is as essential as things worth accomplishing.

Though industrious in my being, I used to spend at least 3-5 hours everyday doing things I could have avoided or easily delegated to someone.

I did these for years and years.

And this was not the sad part.

The sad part was that I did not realize that I could have utilized my time wisely -- for better tasks, for worthwhile activities.

I used to kick myself thinking "Why do I always have crunch-time? -- I am doing so many things. And I am hardly resting. Why?...... Why?"

No answers.

I even thought -- "May be I am little slow in my efforts."

And many such self-doubting & demeaning thoughts ran through me.

I tried many things to improve my productivity in completing daily tasks.

But it did not work.

It was not suppose to.

Why?

Because how much ever hard we try if the course is incorrect, it wont work.

There is no RIGHT process to correct WRONG things or activities.

I was not getting any ideas to change my condition.

Because I was looking at the box from inside the box.

At this point my habit of reading books came to my rescue.

One of those books mentioned about Pareto's Principle.

Another one talked about -- The 4-D Principle.

I used them both and could see lot of change in my productivity.

Perato's Principle (also called 80/20 rule) states: about 80% of our effects or results come from 20% of the causes or efforts

The 4-D principle : Talks about categorization of tasks in 4 categories : Do, Defer (Delay), Delegate, Delete (Drop).

Both of these principles when I used individually helped me increase my productivity by 25-30%.

But about 6 months later, something magical happened.

One day while writing my diary, an idea cropped up.

This came after days of quest to increase my efficiency further beyond the achieved mark of 25-30%.

I probed myself -- "How would it be if I filter my tasks first by Pareto's Principle and then by the 4-D Principle?"

"Would that help giving me an optimum efficiency in my daily routines?"

The answer was to be found out.

I had to go back to drawing board to see how this would turn up.

I found that if I was using these principles individually, there were some tasks I did that were still not worth my time.

Those tasks that could have either been omitted completely or get it done by someone else.

However, if both being used together, I had a perfect set of tasks that I should do and those ones that I must not.

What I realized is that I have lot of time now in my hands.

Time to do things I really cared about.

Time for things I always dreamt of doing.

And Free Time to reflect.

My efficiency increased further to 43-45%.

You could try this process as well with these simple steps:

1. Make list of all the tasks you have in hand.
2. Use Pareto's 80-20 principle and filter those 20% of tasks that helps you gain 80% of your results.
3. Now, take the original list of tasks you have and run it through the 4 quarters of 4-D principle. Categorize them.
4. Now compare your results of 20% tasks you got in step-1 to that of what you got in 'Do' and 'Defer' quarters of step-2.
5. Doing this -- You would find that there were some tasks that still requires to be either completely removed (not-to-be-done) or some that could be delegated to someone else to finish.

This has helped me immensely and become super-efficient in scheduling my day and accomplishing things I really wanted to.

Do share your comments with how it works for you.

I would be eager to know.

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