Why 20% of Your Efforts Yield 80% of Your Results

When you're trying to accomplish a goal, it's easy to get frustrated when you feel like you aren't seeing the results that you want. But the truth is, many factors, both inside and outside of your control, can influence how quickly or easily you reach your goals. Even if you do everything right, there will be things that trip you up along the way.

The Pareto principle is an economic theory that recognizes this fact and helps us understand it better. In short, it says that in any given situation, 80% of the effects or outcomes come from 20% of the causes. If you're having trouble meeting your goals, this principle can help explain why what seems like a small amount of interference can stop you from achieving significant results.

What is the Pareto principle?

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule) states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. The Pareto principle is named after Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist who lived between 1848 and 1923. In 1906, he observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.  He extended this idea to other areas of life, such as business and technology, and found it held true across many aspects of society.

The important thing is to remember that the Pareto principle doesn't always apply. Sometimes it's not true at all! (We will discuss this further when we talk about the positives and negatives). But when it does apply, it can help you prioritize your efforts and get the most out of them.

What makes the Pareto principle so important?

The answer lies in how you use it. When you think about the things you need to accomplish in a day and realize that only 20 percent of those things actually matter, you're able to focus your efforts on what really counts. You don't have to do everything on your list right away; instead, prioritize and get the most important tasks done first. Once they're out of the way, you'll find it much easier to tackle everything else.

If you are having trouble keeping track of your goals or prioritizing tasks, you should try out Assembly's Goal Defining workflow. It will help you set your goals, make it easy to measure them, and define fears, challenges, and disputes so you can break each goal down into more manageable parts.

7 areas where the 80/20 rule can help your productivity

1. Prioritize your tasks.

To use the 80/20 rule, start with task prioritization and elimination. Which tasks are most important? Which ones are most urgent? Then, focus on those tasks first before moving on to less important or less urgent ones.

Using a Notebook can be a great step towards prioritizing tasks that are meaningful. 

2. Focus on what matters most to you and your business goals.
While it’s important to identify and prioritize what tasks are most important for you to accomplish each day, tracking all the activities can be a challenge. There are distractions, interruptions, and so many things that need to be tracked, meaning that you're likely to forget a lot.

Thankfully, a tool like Assembly's daily/weekly agenda workflow, can plan what needs to be done and keep track of due dates and progress. You’ll feel more comfortable knowing what needs to be done at each time and when it's due.

3. Get more done by delegating less important tasks to others or outsourcing them altogether (if possible). ‍

This will keep you focused on what matters while freeing up time for other projects or activities that are more important to you and your business goals.

4. Keep track of what's working and what isn't so that you can repeat successful strategies and avoid repeating unsuccessful ones (which will save time overall).

Assembly Insights | How to get actionable data from the Team Retrospective

5. Making decisions quickly and efficiently.
When you're faced with multiple options, it can be difficult to assess which one will bring you the greatest reward. The 80/20 rule helps give you insight into which path offers the best chance of success.

6. Reducing stress and pressure.
You don't have to do everything yourself or worry about how much work there is to do because you can focus on what matters most — the 20%. This means less stress and less pressure on yourself, which makes it easier for you to be productive in other areas of your life as well.

7. Learning fast from mistakes and failures.
If something doesn't go according to plan, it's often because there was too much going on at once or not enough attention was given to one area over another (or both). When something fails because of these factors, it's better for you to learn from your mistakes so you can make better decisions in the future than beating yourself up over what happened. Without the ability to reflect on past work, it is difficult to resolve problems that might be affecting your current work or plan for improvements in the future.

If you manage a team, Assembly's Team Retrospective Template can help your team create a positive, productive look-back practice by creating space for honest conversations and identifying opportunities to solve problems and improve future outcomes.

Pros and cons of the Pareto principle (80/20 Rule)

Pros:

It helps you focus on what matters most. You can use this principle to help you find out what activities give you the biggest bang for your buck. This allows you put more effort into those activities instead of wasting time on low-yield tasks that don't provide much value.

You can also use it as a guide for prioritizing tasks when there's just not enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be done. If certain tasks can provide more benefit than others, you should definitely prioritize those first!

Other advantages of using the Pareto principle:

• It reduces stress by giving you clarity on what needs to be done.
• You'll have more energy for high-impact activities.
• It helps identify opportunities for improvement because it shows which parts of a process or system are working well and which aren't.

Cons:

The biggest disadvantage of the Pareto Principle is that it encourages people to focus on a small number of tasks that produce the most results rather than doing all tasks equally well. Also, the Pareto principle is often used as an excuse for not doing anything about problems or issues that aren't part of the 'vital few' activities. This can lead to people focusing on the easy things instead of addressing the root causes of problems and issues.

Other disadvantages of using the Pareto principle:

• It creates an incentive not to fix problems because they're "only 20%.
• It doesn't take into account all possible causes.
• It's an oversimplification.
• It doesn't tell you how to improve your results.

Keep track of your one thousand and one tasks 

Keeping track of all your tasks can be a time-consuming chore, especially when your tasks are in different places. As your business grows, you may find yourself organizing more ideas and thoughts in digital formats. At some point, you'll need a single place to manage all of it — your to-do's, calendar events, projects, and thoughts.

Assembly's Notebook allows you to create, manage, and prioritize your tasks while organizing a beautiful directory of ideas and projects. Stop compromising on what matters most. Start prioritizing effectively by creating a beautiful directory for yourself that doesn't leave anything off the shelf. Get started here.