Change Your Life With the 80/20 Rule

My theme lately is to work smarter, not harder. In my article Can Drive Exist Without Burnout, I shared how I often feel like I’m rushing around, but not really getting anywhere. How science supports the benefits of working slowly and intentionally.

I know rushing is a very human tendency, but it’s not how we live our best lives and do our best work. I also know entrepreneurs, and especially creatives, are the biggest culprits of working in a way that is hurried and scatterbrained.

After finishing that article, I pondered how I could be more like a tortoise, and less like a hare. How can I slow down, and find more focus?

One of my favorite books suddenly came to mind - The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less by Richard Koch. It’d been several years since I read this book, so I was long overdue for a reread. Boy did I need it. I’d forgotten how groundbreaking the principles in this book are. They hit home more this time than the first time I read the book, just because of where I’m at in my life right now.

The basis of the book is that 80% of the results come from 20% of the efforts. And this isn’t just a theory, its scientifically proven.

Apparently, this 80/20 skew can be found in all data. It’s just how the world works. For example, around 80% of the world’s beer is consumed by 20% of the population. 80% of the world’s wealth is enjoyed by 20% of the people. The skew isn’t always a perfect 80/20 split, but it’s pretty close. The main point is that a big skew always exists between cause and effect.

The magic really happens when we start to apply this principle to our own lives. 80% of our success comes from 20% of our life events. 80% of our income comes from 20% of our efforts. 80% of our happiness comes from 20% of our day.

When trying to work smarter, we just need to focus on the 20% that is overdelivering. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. It’s about spending more time where we’re already excelling.

My professional mission is to make enough money to do all the things I want to do, while still enjoying my day and making a positive impact. I also desire the freedom to work when and where I want, which is why working smarter is so important to me.

Based on that mission, here are some questions I asked myself:

• Which 20% of my daily tasks are producing 80% of my joy?

• Which 20% of my efforts are making 80% of the impact?

• Which 20% of my business ventures are bringing in 80% of my income?

These questions can also be flipped to define negative patterns:

• Which 20% of my daily tasks are causing 80% of my stress?

• Which 20% of my efforts are draining 80% of my time and resources?

Turns out these are life changing questions, and it gave me a lot of clarity as to what I should be focusing on. More importantly, it clearly defined what I shouldn’t be wasting time on.

There are so many ways you can use this principle to grow, both as a person and in business. It’s true that 80% of my shop sales are coming from 20% of my prints. I know those are the types of prints I need to make more of. And 80% of my blog traffic is coming from 20% of my posts. Those are the topics I need to talk more about.

The biggest takeaway for me was realizing that the best parts of my day are spent making things - whether it’s content or artwork. I know I need to do more of that. My biggest stressors come from working on things I don’t actually want to be working on. Typically these are the things I’m working on for all the wrong reasons, usually to please others.

When I started to think about the world as a whole, I realized a lot of big problems can be remedied by applying this principle. 80% of the world’s issues are probably caused by 20% of the population. How can we make change by focusing our efforts to have the greatest impact? How can we do more of the good things that are already making a huge difference?