Being more effective: the Pareto principle

The Pareto principle states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort. Applied to sales, this principle is that 80% of your sales volume comes from 20% of your clients, or 80% of your new clients come from 20% of your prospecting efforts. Perhaps for academics, 80% of their productivity as measured in research comes from 20% of their researching activity. Perhaps for asset managers, 80% of their returns come from 20% of their investing activity or research.

I use the word "perhaps" because there are some activities where this principle cannot be applied. A concrete example is ditch digging: there are not the 20% of digging motions that move 80% of the dirt. Perhaps a consultant selling his analysis skills may get 80% of his income from his selling activites, but must spend the 80% of his time doing the work of consulting (which perhaps give 20% to income from referrals and upselling.)

Research and statistical analysis will find out where the 20/80 principle is applicable.

If the 80% effort is required, then it may be impossible to take action on this knowledge. But I would submit that it is very important to consider if one really cannot take action on this. It may be possible to hire an assistant to do the 80%.

If one could only do the 20% that gives them the 80% results, one could increase his results by 300% if he could do 5 times the 20%, and neglect the 80% effort that gives only 20% of the original results. (80% x 5 = 400%, 300% more than 100%)

The action point here is that someone, (you I hope!), who wants to more efficiently accomplish their goals, should do the above analysis of their activity, and attempt to focus more on doing the effective 20% activity, and neglect the ineffective 80%.