How To Apply The 80/20 Rule - Part II

How Apply The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 principle is actually a VERY ROUGH guide. This is easily evidenced by the fact that the Government owns 30% of land in the U.S., and in the U.K. well over 50% is owned by the Church and Royal Family combined and again, much of it is “owned” by their government.  (I suppose governments can’t really “own” anything, but I’m sure they do a really good job of looking after it all for us).  So, when you think about the 80/20 Rule, think of it only as a GUIDELINE, rather than a rule.

So, with this in mind, how can this be of any help to you? Well, the first place to start is with your time. You should try to determine which (roughly) 20% of your time is the time that brings you the most rewards (monetarily that is).

Then, once you’ve figured-out what it is that you do to make most of your money, DO MORE OF IT! Those areas that take up your time but accomplish very little should, if at all possible, be either stopped altogether, allocated LESS time, or be delegated to somebody who is paid to do that kind of work.

Watch The Right Kind Of Television Shows

If this simply means watching 1 hour less of Television each day, then that’s a very legitimate place to start. On AVERAGE, people in the U.S. watch about 4 hours of TV every day. If you’re not one of these, please ignore this. However, if you will honestly put yourself in this category, then cut down a little. You really won’t miss it as, let’s be honest, most Television consists of either commercials or fun (but useless) fiction.

Educate Yourself

I like to spend a lot of my time educating myself. Most towns have libraries and there millions of books to read………some of them are actually GOOD books with FACTS in them, though they are in the minority of course.

You can give yourself the equivalent of a PhD education just by reading the right kind of books regularly. Spend some of your time doing this, and a little less doing non-productive things. It will pay you big dividends in the end.

Analyze Yourself

Self analysis is a key component of applying the 80/20 Rule to improve your life.  Let’s face it, we can make changes to just about everything if we choose to, but whether those changes benefit us or not is another matter altogether.

So you must make an analysis of your time, effort and other resources before you can determine exactly WHERE to make the changes that are necessary to your improved life and business.

A simple example would be this: if I eat 5 cakes a day (don’t tell me you’ve never done that!) and exercise for  5 minutes, how would my life improve if I ate only 1 cake a day and exercised for 20 minutes?

What Can You Do Automatically?

On a final note, AUTOMATE as many things as possible, even if this means initially spending more time setting these things up. The right software on your computer can make your life a lot easier (once you’ve learned how to use it) and automating tasks can free-up many hours that you can spend on being more creative in your business, and indeed, in your home life.

Do something ONCE whenever possible so that you can reap the rewards of this work day after day, and year after year.

Luke.