The way to create something great is to create something simple.

Richard Koch

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I call the Pareto Law, or the 80/20 Rule, the Lazy Principle.

Why?

​One of my goals in life is to do less work but achieve better results.

Because I want to be successful and efficient.

And when you use the 80/20 Rule correctly, you do less work and get more results.

You almost feel lazy because you free up so much of your time.

Innovation is the name of the game.

Richard Koch

Many people think they have to work harder to be successful.

Are you working 40 hours a week? Work 60 to earn more.

I have always found that math is not that appealing.

When I 1st discovered the 80/20 Rule, I thought I had found magic.

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But first, ​what is the 80/20 Rule?

The 80/20 Rule says that 80% of outcomes come from 20% of inputs.

The core idea is to prioritize the 20% to produce the best results.

Identify the best assets and use them efficiently to create maximum value.​

I cut my workload in half and increased my results with this simple idea.

A quick example:

Years ago, I worked in sales for a company, and they gave me a portfolio of around 150 clients.

There was a rule in the company that 60% of all your files/clients had to have a current offer out.

But with the nature of the product we sold, there was a 12–16 month cycle before clients thought about purchasing or repurchasing.

Most of my colleagues spent a lot of time getting offers out on files 6, 7, or 8 months away from the repurchase date to keep this 60% target up.

My offer percentage was around 20%-30%, but I closed twice as many files.

I got a lot of pushback from my manager, but their manager gave me slack because of my results.

What was I doing?

I used the 80/20 Rule or my Lazy Principle to focus on the 20% or 30 clients that were close to repurchasing.

I spent more time conversing with key clients and dropped all the pointless work of offering offers to clients who were not interested or ready to see them.

It worked, and it worked well. They promoted me into management within 12 months of working there.

​When you use this rule right, it works like magic.

For many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Vilfredo Pareto

But does everyone use this rule effectively?

No, they don’t.​

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You are misusing the 80/20 Rule, and it’s affecting your results.

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Many people talk about it and say they use it.

However, they tend to reference the idea as 80/20 at a high level but don’t know how to use it effectively.​

I have even caught consultants using it as a buzz term without understanding the layers.​

There are layers? Yes, there are.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

Albert Einstein

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Typically, there are 3 layers to the 80/20 Rule:

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Say you are working in your business, and you have 100 essential tasks, clients, products, or actions to focus on.

You might be feeling overwhelmed.

If you use the rule stopping at the 1st 80/20, you would have 20 essential tasks, clients, or actions left.

​20 tasks, clients, or actions are still a lot of tasks or actions, right?

To use the rule effectively, you would now 80/20 the 20.

Identify the most critical or high-value tasks, clients, or actions from your top 20.

Leaving you with 4 tasks, clients, or high-value actions left to focus on.​

Now, can you get to 4 large tasks, contact 4 clients, or complete 4 important actions in a day?

Maybe not, but in a week, sure, no problem.

But what do you focus on today?

Well, you 80/20 the 4 tasks, clients, or actions and prioritize them.​

Now, I know if 80/20 4 that leaves you 0.8

But you are in the world of numbers here; you will round that up to 1.

What does all this mean?

Well, you have gone from the overwhelm of 100 tasks, clients, or actions to focusing on 1 in a few minutes.

This is the genuine power of the 80/20 rule.​

Be careful how you use this magic.

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

W.B. Yeats

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Side note:

One thing that ticks me off is hearing people use buzzwords because they are in trend.

But remember, 90% of the buzzword-heavy people don’t understand the principles behind what they are talking about.

Always talk less jargon and pump out more results.​

Now go out and 80/20 your 80/20 and get clarity on your next steps.

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