Achieve more by doing less

I am sure most of you reading this have heard of a popular principle called the 80/20 rule, or in other words known as the Pareto principle. This concept was found by Vilfreto Pareto in 1906. Pareto discovered that 80% of people owned 20% of the wealth and resources. This principle, also known as the law of the vital few and the principle of factor scarcity has since been expanded and found to be true in so many fields and areas of life. Since it was discovered, it has been endorsed by other experts who have complimentary concepts.

This rule is not literal in every case, but a philosophy that most results come from a small amount of activities, a remnant of people, and things. Like most of the worlds problems, such as corruption, this rings true. The principle originally relates to the idea that a small population of people rule the world.

Why is this important for us to realize? Well, with the great number of those who are familiar with this principle, still a few fail to apply it in their lives. People still believe in life being 50/50, that you only get out what you put in, which is true to an extent. When we observe nature and the things that affect us every day we will see that. We will find that this Pareto Principle is true throughout everything; we receive 20% of our happiness from 80% of those in our lives. We only wear 20% of the clothes we have in our wardrobe. For business owners, it is likely that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers: Those that spend more and buy more things more often. There are those who just love doing business with you. Those more satisfied with what you provide than any other customer. From our emotional lives to how we perform and the results we get, the law is prevalent and constant in everything.

Why do we fail to take advantage of it? If we know that it is so true, why we not get the best results we possibly can? I mean, why do most people focus on the trivial few in life? Why do we waste most of our time on the many, 80% of activities that only yield 20% of the results? Or the opinions of the 80% of people that do not mean that much to us? It is because of insecurities, the myth that if you work like a mule, and work harder, do more things, work faster and more often, you will get better results. This philosophy of success coming from doing more work is common in the Western world. It is the

Western work ethic philosophy, and a dominant idea of how successful people should live. Really, it should be the other way round, the more successful you get the less things you should be doing. You should be more focused on doing the right things. Our activities should be narrowed down to the 20% of things to do daily that yield us 80% of the results. How can we make this a mind-set in all we do? There are a few questions you can ask yourself before you venture of into new tasks and established routines: 1) Think am I getting the very most out of this? 2) Ask yourself: Are there things I am already doing that do not add much benefit to my activities and results? 3) Next analyse new opportunities. Ask yourself: what things am I currently doing that I can replace, to get better results?

4) Make a plan to systematize or make these new better performing activities a habit, replicable,or able to be repeated. Contemplate, how can I not only introduce these new activities, but make a habit of them?

5) Now you have a plan set, you have identified the weak and trivial, low or nonperforming activities, you can take the same process and apply it to the other areas of your life. That includes relationships, education, and health. The counter-intuitive, and profound truth here, is that we can sow seeds, invest, put in our time and resources into things and expect to get out what we put in. But, if we continue to think like this, and avoid the Pareto principle, or ignore the few most efficient activities, we will only be cheating ourselves.

Never let ego get in the way of you getting the most reward and satisfaction in your life. Do not just do things because you feel like it, but test, analyse, and evaluate to see what works. Do less, focus more, and get the best results.

Author: Leslie Poku Follow him on Twitter: @LesliePoku