How in Less Time do More

After reading such a headline one might easily think (or even shout)- how is that possible?! And it is a very fair question since we all know that generally in order to produce a higher output, the input must be bigger as well. If you sell 10 lollipops for $5 each, your revenue will be $50. So, if you want a turnover of $100, you must sell 20 lollipops. As easy as that. However, the trick is not here.

In 1895 Italian engineer, sociologist and economist Vilfredo Pareto has found a very powerful rule that often tends to be forgotten. Mr. Pareto has noticed that society can be divided into two parts - the most important 20% holding the biggest assets, and the rest 80% which barely plays a role. Pareto even showed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy during his time was owned by 20% of the people. Later he has proved that this rule can be applied for nearly all economic activity.

What we should take out from the Pareto principle (80/20 rule) is that basically 20% of our actions lead to 80% of our results. This means that 20% of our clients create 80% of the value for our company, 20% of the company products account for 80% of the profit etc. We could easily continue and make endless list of examples, but I believe it is clear that only a fraction of our actions are valuable. The rest is rather worthless.

That being said, it is obvious to stress that if we would concentrate on those 20% of our actions, we could be more productive, we could achieve more and add more value to our businesses and personalities. A very interesting point here is that we could apply the 80/20 rule to those 20% that we have identified previously (meaning, to concentrate on the 20% of 20%) and continue doing this until we find that golden nugget (or a set of golden nuggets) that contribute to our results the most.

Enough reading - time for applying! It has worked for me, it will work for you as well. Save time while doing more.