• Part 1: How To Achieve More With Less In Life using 80/20 Principle
• Part 2: Why You Should Not Resist 80/20 Principle
• Part 3: Apply 80/20 to Your Life Now in 3 Simple Steps

If you look closely, 80/20 can be seen in action all around your life, your career, relationships, health, habits, goal achievement, productivity, emotions, and even daily life. Many people are already applying the 80/20 principle without even realizing it.

For example, do you try to cut away meaningless work at your workplace? Do you try to spend more time with people you enjoy being around? Do you make goals and priorities in your life so you can focus your efforts? Do you try to set aside more time for little moments in life which you relish so much in (walk in the park, going to the beach, catching up with friends, etc)? Do you try to improve on the diet by focusing on the few habits that matter, such as drinking more water and eating more vegetables and fruits? Do you reduce negative thoughts and emotions so you can be happier? Do you try to focus on establishing a few habits that can bring in huge value in your life? Every one of those statements is an application of the 80/20 rule.

3-Steps To Applying 80/20

In Living the 80/20 Way, Koch introduced a 3-step way to applying 80/20. I found this method very useful due to its universal application to practically everything in our life.

1. Identify your 80/20 destination – What truly matters to you

What are all your goals and dreams in this world? List all of them down. That’s right, all of them! Everything that you want to do in your life, from the little things to the BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals). You may have anywhere from a few goals to even a full list of them when you are done.

Now, start assessing them. Out of all your goals, which is your 80/20 destination? Your 80/20 destination refers to the 20% goals which, when achieved, will give you 80% of happiness vs the collective happiness from achieving all the goals. What are the 20% goals that you truly, truly want? What are the 20% goals which really matter to you? This is your 80/20 destination which you should start focusing disproportionately on. Your 80/20 destination should be in line with your overall purpose in life.

I have a lot of long-term goals (you can find a few of my short-term goals for 2009 here. It ranges from being a veteran ice skater, traveling all around the world, achieving financial impact, being an expert public speaker, becoming a professional life coach, to becoming an expert psychic.

But I’m very clear on my 80/20 destination – it is to be a personal development educator so I can help others achieve their highest potential and live their best possible lives. I know that as long as I’m living this, the core of my soul is filled with exuberance and joy. The sum of achieving all the other goals on my list simply does not match up to achieving just this one goal. It is having this clarity and focus helps to orientate my energy and efforts accordingly everyday.

2. Identify your 80/20 route – The most effective path to your destination

What are all the possible paths and routes that you can take to achieve your 80/20 destination? Brainstorm on this with no holds barred. Very often, we limit ourselves in our thinking by incorporating one million and one restrictions. We justify them as being ‘realistic’, but reality is most of those concerns are just mental barriers we place upon ourselves.

There are typically 4 routes we have to achieve a certain objective. We have a ‘Low Effort, Low Reward‘ route, ‘High Effort, Low Reward‘, ‘High Effort, High Reward‘, ‘Low Effort, High Reward‘.

The approach we want to nail down is the ‘Low Effort, High Reward’ – i.e., our More with Less or 80/20 route.

More with Less Chart

Imagine you are sitting for a Math exam. Your objective is to score very well. The four routes we have in this scenario are:

1. Low Effort, Low Reward: Do not study until the last minute
2. High Effort, Low Reward: Attend all lectures but not pay attention during lectures; Attend tutorials without doing the tutorials; Dedicate time out to study everyday but drift away whenever you are hitting the books
3. High Effort, High Reward: Attend all lectures and tutorials; Study everyday; Practise as many Math sums as possible; Memorize the solutions and answers
4. Low Effort, High Reward: Attend key lectures and tutorials; Understand the key principles of the topics; Identify likely questions that will be tested in the exams by examining trends in past years’ exams and talking to professors

Out of the four routes, the 4th one gives you the best return on investment for the effort you put in. Similarly, for every situation you are in, there are always 4 possible routes you can take and one ‘More with Less’ or 80/20 route.

Take a step back and think – What is the ‘More with Less’ path that will take me to my destination? In your brainstorming, also examine and understand what other successful predecessors have done to achieve similar goals as yours. Derive learnings from their routes and factor them into your options

Out of these routes, which is the route which stands out significantly above the rest? Does it give you the greatest results with minimal input? Does it resonate with you? Do not stop brainstorming until you find this path. It exists; there is always a ‘More with Less’ route available. You just have to expand beyond your mind’s boundaries and identify it.

3. Identify your 80/20 action – The most effective execution of your route

What is the 80/20 action in your 80/20 route? These are your key pillars of success. Instead of jumping straight in the thick of things and waddling in the process, take a step back. Study all the actions to be performed in your route. Again, study what your precedessors did. What are the key actions which will really make a huge difference in the big scheme of things? What are the ‘need-to-do’ actions vs the ‘nice-to-do’ actions? What are the few key pillars that really matter, and when actioned upon, will guarantee success? Identify them, then nail them disproportionately.

For example, when I started out PersonalExcellence.co, I read a lot of materials written by successful bloggers discussing the methods they used to drive traffic to their sites. Each of them had different winning formulas, from word of mouth, guest posting, commenting on other blogs, posting in forums, listing in Web 2.0 social bookmarking sites, writing quality contact, making friends with bloggers, creating partnership/tie-ups, writing e-books, search engine optimization (SEO) for google, listing in different article directories, just to name a few – all in all culminating into monstrous list of action steps.

After some trial and error and observation of the general landscape, I came to conclude that a few actions were significantly more effective than the others to drive traffic (namely writing quality content, word of mouth and listing in Web 2.0 social bookmarking sites) and invested my effort disproportionately in them instead of using a blanket approach. This is my 80/20 action. The results are paying off today – within less than 1 month of launch, the site has 30,000 visitors so far, and the numbers are steadily climbing every day. (Thank you to everyone of you who has referred the site to your friends and/or linked back on your site!)

Examining areas of your life with 80/20

The 3-step approach is not restricted to just your overall life. It can be used on all other areas of your life as well. I have listed a few examples below – the list is by no means exhaustive! Feel free to think up of other areas you can apply to – The sky is the limit!

1. Habits

What are the habits and routines that surround your life now? Are there any low-value 80% habits which you should do away with? Are there any 20% key power habits you can establish which will bring you that 80% of value in your life?

2. Thoughts

Observe the thoughts that run through your mind in the day. Which thoughts make you feel good? Which thoughts make you feel negative? How can you improve your current mental state through conscious choice of your thoughts? What 20% thoughts can you focus on to make your day even better? What 80% non-valuable thoughts can you eliminate?

3. Emotions

How do you generally feel throughout the day? Which of the following feelings occupy you most of the time? Happiness? Excitement? Passion? Curiosity? Or disappointment? Sadness? Grief? Anger? Do you have more positive or negative feelings? How can you cut away the negative feelings to make more room for the positive ones? What positive feelings will you like to experience more of?

4. Health

What is your diet like now? What foods do you typically consume? What are the few key things you can do to improve your diet and nutrition? Drinking enough water a day? Eating more fruits and vegetables? Cutting out the starchy foods and saturated fats? Consuming more foods with high nutritional value?

What is your exercise routine like? Do you have an exercise routine? What are the few exercises which you get tremendous enjoyment out of which you can play more?

5. Wealth

What are the 20% activities which generate your wealth now? How can you disproportionately focus on the profit-generating activities to increase your profit? If you are an employee, what are the key variables which your pay is linked with? How can you cut away the unimportant stuff and focus on those variables?

6. Career

Is your career one which you enjoy? If not, what are the 20% careers in the world which can give you 80% enjoyment? What are the 80/20 route and action to transition to your 80/20 career?

If you love your current job, what are the 20% activities which you enjoy the most? How can you increase them to further drive up your love for your work?

What are the 20% steps which jump-starts your progression in your career? How can you focus on them to bring you your desired results?

7. Relationships

What are all the relationships you have currently? List all of them down – your family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, relatives. Which 20% of your relationships give you 80% of your fulfilment and happiness? How can you increase your time on these 20% relationships so you can get more out of them? How can you further invest into these relationships to make them even stronger?

8. Productivity

How does your productivity fluctuate throughout the day? What are the 20% situations when you are most productive? What occurs in those 20% situations that enable you to be productive? How can you replicate these 20% so you can be more productive in other times as well?

9. Day-to-day

What are all the activities you undertake throughout of the day? Which 20% bring you the most value and happiness? How can you spend more time on those 20%? How can you try to reduce or cut away the 80% which do not give you much in return?

Practising 80/20 In My Life

While I learnt the 80/20 principle since quite a few years ago (all the way from studying about it back in business school), it is only a few months that I began to really apply it into my life. I get repeatedly affirmed on the value of this principle through the results I get every time I apply it.

Habits

For example, after evaluating the habits in my life in end of 2008, I decided to establish new habits to a) wake up 6am everyday, b) meditate for an hour every morning, c) exercise daily. Though these habits may look very benign by themselves, the power and benefits they can bring into my lives cannot be underestimated. I know for sure that after establishing these habits, I will definitely be much more productive, grounded, healthier, fitter, just to name a few upsides.

Relationships

For my relationships, I realized that while I have a sizeable social network (200+ active friends and acquaintances in my facebook), 80% of my enjoyment come from a certain few key individuals. Thus, I focus more on spending more time with those people and developing those relationships, while still spending sufficient time and attention to my other relationships so they are in a healthy state. This does not mean I cut away the other people; I make it a point to ensure I am always there for all the people in my life, whenever they may need me.

Day-to-Day

In my day-to-day activities, I found that I absolutely love playing badminton, frisbee, connecting with my friends, going to the beach, taking strolls in the open nature, just to name a few. Thus, I find ways to bring those activities into my life more often. I take the lead in organizing badminton games with my friends. I join every frisbee game my friend organizes. I try to suggest or encourage beaches or parks as outing destinations with my friends. From doing this, I get more value out of my everyday life. Life becomes much more enjoyable and fulfilling, without even much effort, if at all.

Moving Forward

Think about how you can apply the 80/20 3-step approach to your overall life, as well as all its different areas. Identify your 80/20 destination, your 80/20 route and your 80/20 action. Start off with a small part of your life first, then move on from there. For example, it may be establishing certain key habits in the area of your health or relationships. You will start truly experiencing the meaning behind ‘Less is More’ and ‘More with Less’. With the increased abundance you get, you will be able to invest that energy into other areas, eventually creating unlimited abundance with your life.

This is the last part of a 3-part series on achieving more with less in your life using the 80/20 principle.

• Part 1: How To Achieve More With Less In Life using 80/20 Principle
• Part 2: Why You Should Not Resist 80/20 Principle
• Part 3: Apply 80/20 to Your Life Now in 3 Simple Steps

Related Posts

• Achieve More With Less In Life Using 80/20 Principle
• Create Your Life Handbook
• Why You Should Not Resist 80/20 Principle
• How To Be Happy: 10 Timeless Principles for Lasting Happiness

• Part 1: How To Achieve More With Less In Life using 80/20 Principle
• Part 2: Why You Should Not Resist 80/20 Principle
• Part 3: Apply 80/20 to Your Life Now in 3 Simple Steps

Some people have written off the 80/20 rule, because of misunderstandings of the rule itself. Below are examples of what the 80/20 is NOT about:

1. 80/20 is NOT about extremism. It is not about maniacally cutting out the 80% which gives you only 20% of your results. It is about adjusting your focus across the various inputs so that you can reap the most optimal outcome from the activity.
2. 80/20 is NOT a zero sum game. It does not mean that the output will suffer or someone will lose out if I reduce the remaining 80% of my efforts. In fact, the truth is really the direct opposite. The 80/20 is about creating more abundance with what we have. By reducing our investment in less essential things, it allows us to generate more with what we have, which will eventually turn around to benefit everyone else. The abundance builds on itself, thus enabling us to create synergy and outcomes where 1+1=10
3. 80/20 is NOT about being capitalistic or opportunistic. It is not about squeezing the cow dry of its milk and slaughtering it for leather. It is not about cutting people away or trying to get ahead at the expense of others. It is not solely about getting personal gain. See above about zero sum game.
4. 80/20 is NOT about specificity. The equation is not necessarily 80/20 all the time; it can be 70/20 (70% of effects due to 20% of causes), 90/10, 60/5, 50/20, etc. Instead of obsessing or fussing over the numbers, the key message to take away is relationships between causes and effects is not 1-1; thus the efforts and investments we make across the causes should be adjusted accordingly
5. 80/20 is NOT just about financial results. It is so much more than just a business principle, because of its applicability to practically everything in our life – relationships, health, goals, spirituality, etc. If for some reason the word ‘results’ does not sit well with you, feel free to replace it with synonyms such as ‘value’, ‘utility’, ‘happiness’, ‘joy’, ‘benefits’, ‘enjoyment’, etc.
6. 80/20 is NOT about not putting your best foot forward. We are still dedicating 100% of ourselves – to the things that bring us the most impact. Instead of investing 80% of our time and effort to getting the remaining 20% value of the task, we invest that same 80% energy into 4 other activities (spreading 20% effort into each) which gives us 320% of value (reaping 80% results from each)! This is a 16 times return (320% over 20%) vs if we were to invest them in the original first activity! 80/20 is about putting in our 100% in places that matter, to get an even better outcome.

My initial resistance towards 80/20

I used to write off the 80/20 principle because it was at odds with my perfectionist and idealist persona. My personal belief is we should try to achieve the best in everything we do, and even if we don’t we should die trying anyway. I also felt that the end outcome out of any activity is from the collective sum of all the inputs. If we try to cut away the other parts that ‘do not matter as much’, the net result would suffer in ways we could not anticipate.

However, all those sentiments were from looking at the 80/20 rule in the wrong manner. I was looking at 80/20 using an extremist mindset.

80/20 is not about being incomplete, being lazy or not putting in our best effort. If anything, 80/20 is more aligned with the vision of an idealist. It is about achieving the best possible outcome by investing in areas that matter most.

If at any point the net outcome is worse from applying the 80/20, it is due to a wrong application of the principle (because we wrongly identified something that is important as unimportant), rather than it being a fallacy.

Looking at 80/20 with an example

Let’s imagine you have a coconut plantation with 100 trees. You spend an equal 1-1 effort in growing and caring for all the trees. During the period of harvest, you found 20% of the trees gives you 80% of your harvests.

Using the 80/20 rule, does that mean you should do away with 80% of the trees? No! As mentioned above, 80/20 is not about completely cutting away the 80% that gives you lesser outputs. It is about adjustment of your energy and efforts so you get the most optimal output with your inputs.

So in this case, instead of spending only 20% of your time on the 20% high output trees, you increase to maybe 50%. The increased time allows you to care for them better, watering regularly, buying and top-grade fertilizers, loosening the soil, etc. You spend the minimal effort required to keep the 80% of the trees alive, possibly removing 10% of the trees that are infected by insects so you can focus your resources on the other trees. In time to come, you will find your harvests increasing disproportionately so, compared to if you had maintained the 1-1 time/energy spent with every tree.

The role of judgment in 80/20

Maybe you ask – what if one of the trees from the 10% you removed would have turned out to give you more harvest than any of the rest?

It is entirely possible. However, this does not mean the principle is wrong and you should not apply it. It just means that you could have exercised better judgment. If you are a seasoned coconut tree planter, you would have known that particular tree had potential to produce a great bounty of harvest.

What the principle establishes there is an imbalance between inputs and outcomes, and we should adjust our investment of energy accordingly to get a better outcome. Like any laws or principles that preceded the 80/20, application by people means perception and judgment will come into play. Some people may be adverse towards 80/20 because they feel everything deserves their equal attention and they are in no place to judge whether one thing is more deserving than the other. This might be especially so as we shift away from measurables like performance and wealth and move into intangibles such as people and relationships. You may argue and say that you never know what you may be cutting out by ‘removing things which do not matter’.

But by investing your energy in causes which are low impact, you are denying the other causes (which you could have been working on) your time and attention. How would you know those things you could have been doing otherwise would not benefit more from your attention? You don’t know unless you try.

Opening yourself to 80/20

If you do not make a conscious choice on the things to invest your energy in, you are making a choice against other things which could evolve into much more valuable outcomes. Rather than being sticking to an equality approach because you are afraid you might be cutting out something important, strive to improve and refine your judgment, so you can better prioritization decisions Since there is always going to be a certain degree of error in our judgment, we can only strive for the most accurate application of the 80/20 principle based on our most educated assessment, rather than perfection. We may never be 100% correct, but the more experiences we encounter in life, the more data points we have to improve and base our judgment upon so that it is the most accurate it can be. And if we keep seeing more positive results and outcomes than before, it means we are moving in the right direction. With practice, we can only get better.

In the last part of the series, we will discuss a 3-step approach to apply 80/20 to all areas of your life.

This is part-2 of a 3-parter series on achieving more with less in your life using the 80/20 principle.

• Part 1: Achieve More With Less In Life using 80/20 Principle
• Part 2: Why You Should Not Resist 80/20 Principle
• Part 3: Apply 80/20 to Your Life Now in 3 Simple Steps

Related Posts

• Achieve More With Less In Life Using 80/20 Principle
• Apply 80/20 to Your Life Now in 3 Simple Steps
• Create Your Life Handbook
• Does Your Room Inspire You?

This is part-1 of a 3-part series on achieving more with less in your life using the 80/20 principle.

• Part 1: How To Achieve More With Less In Life using 80/20 Principle
• Part 2: Why You Should Not Resist 80/20 Principle
• Part 3: Apply 80/20 to Your Life Now in 3 Simple Steps

“Conventional wisdom is not to put all of your eggs in one basket. 80/20 wisdom is to choose a basket carefully, load all your eggs into it, and then watch it like a hawk.” – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle

Today, I am going to share with you the power of applying the 80/20 principle to your life. Even though I initially applied it at work, I have come to witness its presence in virtually all aspects of life (relationships, goal achievement, emotions, time management, etc) and how much value it can bring to all of us through its application.

So, what is the 80/20 Principle?

Imagine you are the CEO of a company and you have a sales force of 100 people. In a world where everything is equal and the same, you will naturally assume that each person contributes to your sales proportionately; i.e. 20% of the employees contribute to 20% of the sales, 50% contribute to 50% sales, and so on.

However, what if instead of a 1-1 relationship, you found out 80% of your sales is actually contributed by 20% of your staff?

What the 80-20 Principle Is About

This is what the 80/20 rule is about – it says that 80% of the effects in situations are from 20% of the causes. This was first discovered by Pareto, an Italian Economist who found that 20% of people in Italy controls 80% of the wealth and land. 80/20 is also known as the ‘Pareto Principle’ or ‘Principle of Least Effort’.

Examples of 80/20 Principle in Action

Below are just a few of the tens of thousands of examples where 80/20 principle can be observed:

• Population: 80% (25.8 million out of 32.3 million) of the population in England is contributed by 20% (53 out of 263) of its cities
• Resource Consumption: 70% of the world’s energy, 75% of its metals, and 85% of its timber are consumed by 20% of the world’s countries (with far fewer than 20 percent of the world’s population)
• Natural Resources: 80% of Earth’s mineral wealth is produced by far less than 20% of the Earth’s surface
• Wealth: 85% of the total global assets is accounted for by 10% of adults (Source: Guardian)
• Crimes: 80% of crimes is committed by 20% of the criminals
• Books: 80% of the value in a book can be gleaned from 20% of its content
• Accidents: Majority of road accidents is by 20% of the motorists
• Clothes: Majority of the times you wear 20% of the clothes in your wardrobe
• Divorces: Majority of the divorces is by 20% of married individuals
• Weather: 80% of the rain is by fewer than 20% of clouds
• Consumption: Majority of the world’s consumption is on a small portion of the products (think Coca Cola, Microsoft, Ipod, etc)
• Daily Life: Majority of the times you eat out, you dine at the same 20% of the restaurants you know
• Smoking: Majority of the cigarette consumption is by 20% of the smokers (are you one of them?)
• Relationships: 80% of the value you get from relationships is from 20% of the people you know
• Goal achievement: 80% of the effects and value you get in goal pursuit will be from 20% of the things you did (the key pillars of success)

….And the list goes on.

Applying 80/20 Principle into Our Life

However, people have quickly found the ubiquity of this law to practically all aspects of our life. Today, the rule has come to represent that a large majority of effects are due to a small portion of causes, rather than specific emphasis on 80/20 equation. 80/20 is really synonymous with two themes, which Richard Koch shared in Living the 80/20 Way as well:

1. Focus: Understanding that Less is More

80/20 is about being able to see the big picture, identifying the 20% activities that truly matters and focusing on them. Focusing on the 20% activities that are most important lets you achieve more out of your life, rather than focusing your energy on everything – thus, ‘Less is More‘. This is the same as being ‘effective‘ which I shared in ‘Become the Master of Your Time‘.

Some aspects of ‘Less is More’ include: How can you remove the tasks that do not contribute as much to the situation? How can you reduce your energy in activities that do not bring you as much value? How can you focus your attention instead to cultivate and expand upon activities which make you happier, better off, more abundant (not just in financial terms)?

2. Progress: Achieving More with Less

The current mentality of our society is a ‘More with More’ mindset. Everyday, we straddle ourselves across multiple responsibilities, thinking that it is all for the better good. We stretch ourselves to fit all the demands that come in from all sides of our life. But are we really getting more results by putting in more effort? Or is it the same or even less results? At the end of the day, we end up becoming more hagged, more jaded, more disillusioned. Our health wanes, our social life suffers, and all additional money we earn goes into more bills and loans. For the investment of energy we are putting in, we do not seem to be quite well receiving the equivalent level of fulfillment in return.

80/20 allows you to get the most out of living. When you scale back on the activities that are not important, you end up getting more energy which you can invest back in what’s important. When you cut away tasks that are zapping your time with no seeming return, you have more time for what matters to you.

In the end, 80/20 allows you to achieve more results, with less energy. It gives you extraordinary results with little action. With 80/20, we can achieve more with less. In the next part, we will discuss the 6 common misconceptions people have on the 80/20 principle and why why you should not resist the principle.

This is part-1 of a 3-part series on achieving more with less in your life using the 80/20 principle.

• Part 1: How To Achieve More With Less In Life using 80/20 Principle
• Part 2: Why You Should Not Resist 80/20 Principle
• Part 3: Apply 80/20 to Your Life Now in 3 Simple Steps

Related Posts

• Why You Should Not Resist 80/20 Principle
• Apply 80/20 to Your Life Now in 3 Simple Steps
• Create Your Life Handbook
• Using Your Environment to Achieve Your Goals