What is the 80 20 Rule about?
In short work smarter not harder.
The 80/20 Rule can be used for everything. For Relationships, for Business, for Diets, for health, for fitness you name it can be applied to everything.
The 80/20 Principle known as the Pareto’s Principle. The founder was the Italian Economist Vilfredo Pareto.
Pareto first made a connection with the 80/20 rule when he looked at his garden where he could see that 20 percent of the healthy pea plants in his garden produced 80 percent of the healthier pea crops.
He also figured out that 20 percent of the people owned 80 percent of the wealth. The 80/20 Rule can be applied to anything.
The 80/20 Rule from the perspective of a small business
Have a look around if you own a business, you can say that 80 percent of your revenue comes from the 20 percent of your customers.
If you have employees than you can for sure say that 20 percent of your employees are responsible for the 80 percent of your overall company results.
That is the 80/20 Rule.
Take the 80/20 Rule example of a Relationship.
Even a relationship requires finetuning. To do so you also have to work smarter not harder. Be smart with the 80/20 Rule.
20 percent of those who marry compromise the 80 percent of the divorce statistic. ( those who remarry and divorce consistently)
We, as humans, are always looking for the next best thing because as we all know, the grass is always greener on the other side, right? Wrong.
This is what the 80/20 rule teaches you. Generally, when in a relationship you get about 80 percent of what you want. This sounds pretty good because it’s such a high percentage. However, we are also craving that other 20 percent.
We fight over it, break up over it and complain about it because as we already went over, we always want what we can’t have. via The 80/20 Rule Of Relationships – Great Mind
The 80/20 Rule in losing weight
80 percent of the time you eat and prepare healthy food. 20 percent you prepare and eat not so healthy.(healthy nutrition book )
It is a good balance as when you are travelling a lot and stay in Hotels like myself it is not always easy to eat what you would say is healthy and doesn’t go straight to your hips. There you can apply the 80/20 Principle.
Follow the 80/20 nutritional rule and sooner than later, you will see some positive results.
The 80/20 rule goes as follows, 80 percent of the time I need to be completely in control of my food, the other 20 percent of the time, I can let someone else do the thinking for me.
To break it down further, 80 percent of my meals need to be prepared by me, in the fashion that I intend them to be prepared.
These meals need to contain adequate lean Protein, Healthy Fats, and appropriate Carbohydrates. Now the other 20 percent, this is where you can go out to your favourite restaurant, head to the neighbourhood barbeque, or you can order carry out on your way home from work.
Allowing yourself to be human 20 percent of the time will greatly increase your chances of healthier eating the rest of the time. via Coach G’s Nutrition Corner: 80/20 Rule
Learn How To Retrain Your Brain And Free Yourself from the Self-Doubt, Fear, And Lack Of Confidence That Is Holding You Back From Successfully #Losing #Weight.
Use the 80/20 Rule for Life. Work smarter not harder.
Pareto discovered that virtually everything especially all economic activities are subject to the 80/20 principle or 80/20 rule. Pareto says that 20 percent of your activities will count for 80 percent of your results. ( work smarter not harder)
In society, 20 percent of the criminals account for 80 percent of the value of all the crimes.
20 percent of Motorist cause 80 percent of the accidents.
20 percent of Children attain 80 percent of educational qualifications available. ( Sourcebook of Richard Koch 80-20 principle achieve more with less effort.
That is an interesting fact, and it can also have a reverse effect A lot of people or businesses work as 80 percent with effort and only produce a result of 20 percent. (work harder not smarter)
We all have friends who work 24/7 but never reach the clouds. After a couple of years, they are diagnosed with burn out syndrome or stress.
Also, a lot of Entrepreneurs work the 80/20 rule in the reverse mode without knowing it. As it has becomes a daily thing they don’t realize it anymore.
From time to time a light bulb switches on and they ask why do I not get ahead with this business.
When you run a sales and marketing business successful, it is obvious that the 80/20 Rule is in place. That’s why 20 percent of your customers will be responsible for the 80 percent of your sales. That is a healthy Business.
20 percent of your product and or services will count for the 80 percent of your profits.
As well as 20 percent of your staff efforts will count for the 80 percent of value and service what you provide.
If you say this in a short version it means, that if you have a list of 10 things to do. Then two of those things will be 6 or 12 times more profitable than the other eight things together.
The 80/20 rule is a universal principle applied to anything.
Here comes the phrase again work smarter not harder!
For example.
If you work in Affiliate Marketing and you do sales.
If you have 1 item where you can make $ 1.000 Commission per sale than you only need to make 10 sales to have $ 10.000
If you have 1 item where your commission is $ 100 per sale than you have to make 100 sales to achieve $10.000 in commission.
The effort of both sales and marketing is the same, but the result is different. Work smarter not harder.
click the text below to find out
The secret of working smarter not harder
An interesting Perspective on Priority Task versus Important Task
Here goes the 80/20 Rule into reverse action
You have 10 tasks and each of the 10 tasks require the same amount of time. Say each task needs around 50 to 60 minutes. Task 10 on the list will bring 7 or 8 times the value of task 1-9. Unfortunately, most of the time people start with the less worth tasks and than start to procrastinate to avoid the tasks.
The 80/20 Rule List
You should look at your list closely and see which task is the most efficient one who makes you the most revenue. That one you should start first, the other ones you can delegate to others or outsource them.
If you are a one-man show than do them later but first accomplish the profitable less time and effort required task.
The fact is that most people procrastinate in the top 10 percent to 20 percent of items that are most valuable and important.
Instead, they keep themselves busy with lots of other non-important and just time killing things, they do not realize they sabotage themselves in being successful.
They are their worst enemies those are the 80 percent inefficiency what produce the 20 percent of efficiency.( reverse 80/20 rule)
Work harder, not smarter
How to overcome the reverse Mode of the 80/20 Rule ( work harder, not smarter)
Focus on Activities, Not Accomplishments
The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous.
For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80 percent while you still have tasks in the top 20 percent left to be done.
Before you begin work, always ask yourself, “Is this task in the top 20 percent of my activities or in the bottom 80 percent?”
Motivate Yourself
Just thinking about starting and finishing an important task motivates you and helps you to overcome procrastination.
The fact is that the amount of time required to complete an important job is often the same as the time required to do an unimportant job.
The difference is that you get a tremendous feeling of pride and satisfaction from the completion of something valuable and significant.
Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.via GETTING SUCCESS IN LIFE BY USING PARETO’S 80/20 RULE | | Don’t Give Up World
Download our S.M.A.R.T Worksheet to manage your time
The successful People in Life use the 80/20 Rule daily.
The most successful People in Life do discipline themselves and start with the most important ( the task what brings the highest revenue and require less the effort of time) each day.
For them, it comes naturally to use the 80/20 rule (work smarter not harder.)
I remember my dad telling me to work hard and you get somewhere. I can’t remember how many times I been hearing that when I was young. Everyone was saying it. I believe it until I came across the book of Mark Twain where he says ” financial success does not require hard work” He says it is all in your subconscious mind.
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So did my Friend!
I still remember my friend who went to study with me, she always had money and never I saw her work, so I got told by my other friends, she properly is doing something illegal. of course…
If someone was not working hard and still had money that meant the person did something illegal. From young on your brain has been trained to think work harder not smarter. The 20/80 Rule.
Have you ever asked yourself why some people can enjoy life and never seem to work, but are wealthy and successful? and people who work 24/7 and never take or go on a holiday because they are too exhausted are still poor and do the same job for 30 years without any promotion?
Here comes the 80/20 Rule in action both ways the right principle mode and the reverse mode.
As I have now said it already a few times, the successful ones put the 80/20 Principle in action and follow the rules.
They put 20 % effort in and reap the 80 % success. ( work smarter not harder)
The non-successful ones use the reverse 80/20 principle what do they do wrong, they put 80% effort in and reap 20% success. ( work harder not smarter)
A business/or an entrepreneur it doesn’t matter how small or big it needs a structure and a system in place. The main task is to prioritize the daily tasks who bring in the best result to put on top.
The 80/20 Rule is a great tool and it correlates to the Fibonacci code, where everything in existence has his synergy. Play around with it and you see you can use it for anything you can think of. ( work smarter not harder)
Download our S.M.A.R.T worksheet to manage your time
A conclusion to the 80/20 Rule
Should you care about the 80/20 Principle? You might not realize that but this principle applies to your daily life, to your social world, social media, and your place where you work and hang out. Understanding the 80/20 Principle gives you great insight into what is happening in the world, and around you.
The Feeling of mastering the 80/20 rule. Work smarter not harder finally achieved.
The feeling that will come when you finally master the 80/20 Principle is amazing and it is like flying on a cloud to catch the stars.
” I believe in the Law of Attraction” and I made myself an Affirmation and every day I say it at least 50 times and more.
How can you master the 80/20 Principle start with Time management read my post “Why Time Management is important”
Time Management is a necessary task to achieve and keep you going up the ladder of success.
Download our S.M.A.R.T Worksheet to manage your time efficiently. Full instruction.
Do you use the 80/20 Rule how did you start to get going with it? Different people approach it differently, we love to hear from you how you implemented the 80/20 principle. Please feel free to comment. Thank you for taking your time to read this post.
Atma Namaste
Sylvia
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Book recommendations to read:
The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less by Koch Richard
John Assaraf Winning the Game of Business
View Comments (32)
I recently discovered the 80/20 rule while I was listening to a fitness podcast (of all things). It’s already helped me gain a deeper insight into my home business as I’ve begun identifying the 20% of clients who provide me with 80% of their business. All customers are important to me, but my best customers deserve extra care as far as I’m concerned. I hate to admit this, but I even stopped taking work from one customer who was more trouble than they were worth. Is this okay to do in your opinion, Sylvia?
Hello Ryan
the 80/20 rule is great and I love and use this system in my daily work. It took me a while to get the hang of it but when you got it the rule is so obvious that you think why did I not use it earlier. I did together with the 80/20 rule a program from John Assaraf that is called Brain A Thon and this is so good and I am not joking about it but it is really great and I love it. It helped me to get over my fears about not having enough time to do all the things I wanted to do. It also helped me to get over some money issues I had in the past. Here is the link to the webinar and it is a free event have a look.
Thanks and have a great day
Sylvia
Understanding this 80/20 rule has a lot to do with the end in mind – if you could just picture where you want to be within a limited time, then you can reverse engineer your approach on how to get there which now gives you a basis to judge those activities which are in line with the ultimate goal. Unless one can decipher this, it probably be another fruitless exercise just like Darren said!
This is an interesting topic and would appreciate more on how to envision a goal that could be reversed engineered, remember this rule was made after a discovery, meaning – you might be wrong from your stand point now if you do not have an idea of how the end would look like.
Dear Sharo
Sometimes people do not realise that effectiveness comes with a price. The price is being productive. Said this being productive and effective means you need to decide what is your goal and what do you want to accomplish in a specific time frame. Making decisions does not come so easy to some people for them to make a decision is difficult and they struggle with themselves to decide to do or not to do.
Figuring out the 20percent of input that brings you the 80 percent of efficiency is a hard task to do. Especially if it means changing the routine. Our mind and body do not like to change habits it wants to stay save and sound. That is why this little voice in your head tells you not to do, but in your heart, you know you should do it. I love the 80/20 rule as it made my life so much easier. Another game changer is for people to believe that working hard and long hours makes you efficient ( only in your mind ) Financially success does not require hard work it needs an smart thought combined with an intelligent way of working.
Thanks for stopping by
Sylvia
Sometimes I feel like I'm working way to hard for very little result, trying to force something to work that I believe should be working. But then I have to force myself to stop, step back and reassess, because I'm probably wasting time on tasks that just aren't bearing fruit.
You bring up some great points in you article, and the 80/20 principle is very true. We all need to keep it in mind constantly as we work towards our goals.
Dear Darren
The 80/20 principle is a bit of a tricky one, and sometimes you can get lost in the approach. In my opinion, the 80/20 rule is a game changer as it does require people to decide on what is the core of each task and efficiency/productivity level. It will take time but when you got it you are off to go, and success will come.
Most companies and entrepreneur fail because they waste time on tasks that are time-consuming and on the bottom list of accumulating and earning an income.
Thanks for stopping by
Have a great Sunday
Cheers Sylvia
Great article! I think a lot of us have heard of the 80/20 rule, but you have explained it perfectly. I forgot that we should be using the rule in everyday life too. I am currently trying to lose some weight so I am being very strict about my diet. Thanks for reminding me that it's ok to relax 20% of the time, otherwise I have a tendency to remain too strict until I inevitably cheat and declare it's all over. It's how I yo yo diet.
Dear David
I think most of the people know the 80/20 rule. Implementing it is for many people not so easy, as a lot to struggle with decision making. The 80/20 rule is in general easy to understand it is a great tool, and I have to say I love it. It took me a while to get this one in a system order, but since I use it in all things, I do it is a tool I don't like to miss. It is so easy to systematize it, but it will not work without proper time management. Have a look at my other blog post about time management. click here
Thanks for visiting my site
Have a beautiful day
Sylvia
Hi Bienissima! Wow I love that name. Doesn't it mean super good in spanish? Or is it italian? Anyways, great article on the 80/20 rule. Your are right, this can be applied to anything in life. We all need a strong reminder of such a tool. Organizing how we spent time for the betterment of our business is a must, WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER, for sure!!! Thank you!!!!!
Hi Jackie
It comes from Italian and means something like wonderful. The 80/20 rule is great and yes it can be applied to everything. Not everyone can manage it and it does not come into a lot of minds that most of the successful people and companies work with the 80/20 principle.
At its core, the 80-20 rule is a statistical distribution of data that says that 80% of a specific event can be explained by 20% of the total observations.
Have a great day
Cheers Sylvia
This is a very interesting article for me. Especially since I am just starting out my own online business and I am trying to work very hard to get everything situated and looking decent, and right now I am getting a trickle of visitors a day - but everyday the number goes up! Its very intriguing to watch the slow progression of revenue on a daily basis ( as long as I continue to plug in my work ) but because my business is in the infancy stage, I feel like a working 80 is given if I want to get to a point to where I only have to work 20 - do you know what I mean? How do you feel about starting a business and trying to get it going? Should you go 20 or 80?
Hello Sophia
Starting your own online business is excellent and can be a challenge. It does not matter if you just started or not if you start in a way that you want to work from the beginning efficient than when the business grows organising and getting things done is easier. The secret to the 80/20 rule is challenging and needs decision making on what is a priority task and what is not so much priority. I follow a schedule where I know I have productive hours and unproductive hours. (80/20 principle arrangement of time) Essential and money were doing duties I put into the productive hours. The rest goes into the unproductive hours. Jobs I do not like to do and take me ages because of that I will outsource.
Have a great day
Sylvia
I like the 80/20 rule. Like you mention it can be applied to everything in life but honestly, I've never really thought about it before. I would say that 80% of wasting time and 20% of being efficient applies very well to me! I'm trying to improve on that one, but i think anyone new to working from home would find this a challenge.
Thanks for an inspiring post, it as given me a lot to think about!
Hello Rose
When I wrote the article about the 80/20 principle, I realized that some of my friends use it the opposite way. Sometimes working very hard doesn't mean you are efficient. It means you need to take a step back and look a bit closer on how to improve the efficiency. I agree with you that working from home offers a challenge to profitability. Sometimes we drown in work, and we do not think we can handle all. If you can afford to outsource some of the work you do than outsource it. It is a great way to start learning to be an entrepreneur and not a Solopreneur
This is something that I struggle with. One truth that I have discovered about the 80/20 rule is that you need to have some experience and put in some time before you can really make it effective. I am a little impatient and tend to want to decide what to start cutting out without putting in enough time. I see it in some of the students that I tutor also- they want to solve problems quickly but they haven't put in the time and practice to know what they need to cut out.
So, I absolutely believe that the Pareto Principle can make a huge different, but you do need to put in some work on the front end.
Hi ,
Thank you for taking the time to comment. It's always great to hear other people's views and experiences on a particular subject.
You raise a good point. How often is it the case that we might know the theory about something, but find it difficult to put into practice, sometimes because we have gotten into a certain habit, and we have to "unlearn" that (bad/destructive/negative) habit before we can "relearn" a new one.
I know of many people who really genuinely want to change their life, and make resolution after resolution, but never succeed in achieving their goal. Part of it is to do with spending time on the wrong thing, i.e the Pareto Principal, and part of it is to do with a lack of understanding in how to set and achieve goals (you should have big dreams but small, achievable goals).
There's a famous Henry Ford Quote that seems to be apt for this story, and that is "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail". That could be rewritten into a positive statement such as "if you plan to succeed, you must first succeed to plan".
I'd love to hear any stories you have about times when the 80:20 rule has helped you.
Have a fabulous week!
Sylvia
Hi there
Interesting, I knew about the 80/20 rule when applied to business and sales but hadn't thought about it being applied to relationships where you get 80% of what you want.
I definitely agree with the concept of working smarter not harder though and have applied it in my life to some effect.
Hi Ann,
Thanks for taking the time to engage. I'm happy to know that you got value out of that blog post.
I agree with you that there are so many opportunities to apply this rule in our daily lives.
A lot of us don't even realize how much time we waste every day.
People like you who have recognized the need to be more efficient are well on their way to a much more satisfying life. Recognition of the problem is key. Measuring the problem is also essential for the average person, as once they have hard facts in front of them, they can choose to change their habits/work patterns to improve their efficiency and spend time on what is essential/important to them, based on their life goals.
What areas of your daily life have you seen improvement in since recognizing the need and started applying the 80:20 rule?
What books have you read on the subject that you would recommend to others?
Thanks for sharing and have a fabulous and productive week!
Sylvia
Wow! I have to say that I got my light bulb moment when I was reading this. I just had to comment on it, although I don’t always do it.
It has helped me understand how thing works, and it all makes sense when you apply this rule. My love life has crumbled so many times because of that 20%, and now I see why I don’t always have all the potential clients buy from my business.
Thanks a lot for that nugget of wisdom.
Hello Dave
Nice to hear that I triggered with my article a light bulb. I have to admit when I read the book from Richard Koch about the 80/20 Principle it clicked many times in my head and mind. It helped me to fine tune my Time management skills even more.
Have a beautiful day
Sylvia