You want to know how to become more efficient and have more time then use this awesome principle.

I took it upon myself to leave my circle of comfort and look for methods which could help me do my work more efficiently so I can read novels while sitting on the ceramic throne(WC).

While browsing the internet I found this awesome habit/rule (whatever you wanna call it) that successful people use and it’s called the Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule.

The method comes from Vilfredo Pareto 1906, an Italian economist who noticed that 80% of his harvest came from just 20% of his pea plants.Then later on he also observed that 80% of Italy’s land is owned by just 20% of the population.

This principle can also be found in tons of other places:

  • In general, 80% of revenue comes from 20% of customers.
  • Maybe you wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time.
  • 80% of the time you use only 20% of the programs on the computer.
  • I bet you only use 20% of the positions you know 80% of the time.
  • 20% of the people are causing 80% of your anger.

Go on youtube and watch as someone draws a superhero in 25 minutes, then they do the same in 5 minutes and at the end only a few seconds time.

Within 5 minutes I can already see 80% of Superman.

Here are some stories that show the application of the method.

Story no. 1

Jim made a website and to attract customers, he used different social media platforms like facebook, instagram, twitter, google plus (yeah in that era there was something like that)(yeah and back in the day you could not share the same message through all the platforms only manually).  And after analyzing the Data he sees that 80% of his customers come from only one of the platforms. In the end he decides to focus his time and energy on that single platform and thus increasing profits substantially.

Story no. 2

Barbara has a non-profit organization, 80% of the money from donations come from 20% of the people who donated. Knowing this, she focused her energy more on those 20%, she sent them a personalized invitation letters to the event, and special thanks for the previous donations over the years. In the end the donated amount was increased considerably.

Story no. 3

At another company the boss noticed that 80% of the complaints were coming from 20% of the customers who weren’t even part of the majority that brought in the big profits. He then decided to discard them and thus made sure he doesn’t have to take a fistfull of medication for his nerves and now he enjoys more free time.

People who learn for exams can also use this method to focus on the core things their teachers talk about and just ignore the small stuff. And lots of times it pays off so after that you have more energy to focus on other stuff.

If most of your happiness comes from just 20% of your friends then you will be better off spending more time with them.

Okay so now you’ll probably tell me hey Danny how should I reduce the time with my other friends? Well, you can come up with a smart excuse like I need to go cut the alfalfa so I can feed the sharks in my swimming pool or some other ingenious answer.

In short the Pareto rule tells us that with 20% effort you can already get 80% of the results.

Let’s see

For the 20% of you, who will care to use this method I salute you in your journey enjoying the spare times this Principle will free up for you.