The 80/20 Rule: What is the Pareto Principle and Why You Should Do It? Thoughts and Tips, The Art of Time Management

Time management is the hardest business to deal with. Time is our most precious treasure yet very limited and is not enough most of the time due to mismanagement. You are here because you also wanted to change your lifestyle by altering the way you manage your time. You heard of the Pareto Principle but still haven't done anything to do it yet. Or are you still confused about the 80/20 rule? Now, come and unravel the treasure behind this golden rule. 

What is the Pareto Principle?

Named after an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, the Pareto Principle is more commonly known as the 80/20 rule. This states that on every 20% input, there is an equivalent of 80% output. And vice versa. This scenario of 20% of something yielding to 80% of something may not occur all the time BUT the majority of the time. 

Examples of the Pareto Principle

For instance, research says that we only wore 20% of our clothes, 80% of the time. In books, 20% of the pages contain 80% of the most important information. And in business, 20% of the customers cover 80% of the company's revenue every time. And you might notice the bolded phrase and vice versa. This is because the inverse of the situation is also true. For more info, click here. 

The Inverse Effect

Pareto Principle is proven to be helpful for people and businesses if applied properly in our lifestyle. The most common mistake of people who is new to this lifestyle is the inverse effect of the 80/20 rule. This rule is teaching us to do less work but achieve more results. But sometimes people tend to put in more work and end up achieving not enough results. It is maybe shocking, but your 80% effort could only yield 20% of the result you are eyeing for. Simply, less work is responsible for more results. While more work is also responsible for fewer results. 

Why do We Fail in Time Management?

The 10% Rule

When I first encounter the Pareto Principle, I found it difficult to apply it in my life. From my academics to work and even to my relationships! For someone who is goal-oriented, what causes me stress is a long bullet list of what to do for the whole week but still haven't accomplished half of it! But you won't experience this anymore because we got you! Still using the Pareto Principle, the first rule is still 80/20. (1) Do less, achieve more. This means that on every task, you will not push yourself to do it in one shot! We only have 24 hrs a day, there are more sides to look at, or else you might miss them! The second rule is the 10% rule. (2) If you have a task, a goal, or an objective in mind, plan it systematically. Create a timeline of what you wanted to accomplish in that period. But make sure to accomplish at least 10% of the task every time. 

Here is an example, you are tasked to create the whole month's narrative report for a certain product. Every day, you have your daily tasks and of course, there are small requests here and there. This means that your 8 hours of work time is not only meant for the narrative day. Now, the best thing to do is divide the period given to you before you could pass it into 10 periods. But make sure to not include the week of passing the paperwork. Now, alongside your daily tasks, you can also do another task without doing overtime because you were able to manage your time properly. And the advantage of using the 10% rule is as time passes by, this rule will trick your brain into that 10% is not enough. So for the next period of making, you might achieve 10% and more. 

This is the art of time management. Drawn by Pareto Principle. Made possible by the 10% rule. How about you? What is your daily routine? Are you more of a spontaneous or are you also an organizer? Or maybe you are a mixture of both?