The Secret of Achieving More With Less
or
The Most Powerful Book I've Ever Read
I recently picked up a book that I had used as a great resource in my corporate job 15 years ago, The 80/20 Principle: The Secret of Achieving More With Less by Richard Koch. It was a helpful resource then and even more so now that I am in business for myself.
Are you focusing on your time management and frantically trying to fit more into your day? Do you need more time to manage your business and more time for your life? Instead of running around like a headless chicken trying to accomplish all your tasks, take a minute out, sit down and think about this:
Our current use of time is irrational. People add task upon task to a never ending list, relying on frantic effort to accomplish everything. This leads to poor results, poor morale, and little success. Instead of seeking marginal improvements in how we spend our time, it’s time to implement an overhaul on how we view time usage entirely.
The Pareto Principle (also known as the 80-20 rule) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. For example:
*80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients
*80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers
*80% of your complaints come from 20% of your customers
*80% of your profits come from 20% of the time you spend
*80% of your sales come from 20% of your products
*80% of your sales are made by 20% of your sales staff
Therefore, many businesses have easy access to dramatic improvements in profitability by focusing on the most effective areas and eliminating, ignoring, automating, delegating or re-training the rest, as appropriate.1
The 80/20 Principle is a guideline to help you focus on your best use of resources, and your percentages may actually be 90/10 or 80/20, but once you figure out where you and your business are, then you can use that information to make changes and/or improvements.
There is no shortage of time. In fact, we are positively awash with it. It is only 20% of that time, however, that we utilize effectively. And for the most talented individuals, it is often tiny amounts of time that make all the difference. The 80/20 Principle says that if we doubled our time on the top 20 percent of activities, we could work a two-day week and achieve 60 percent more than now. Think about that the next time you’re anxiously awaiting that three day weekend.
1. Koch, Richard. The 80/20 Principle: The Secret of Achieving More With Less
