“Conventional wisdom is not to put all of your eggs in one basket. 80/20 wisdom is to choose a basket carefully, load all your eggs into it, and then watch it like a hawk.”
~Richard Koch
Richard Koch wrote the brilliant book, “The 80/20 Principle.” I highly recommend it.
The basic idea (I dedicated a whole Big Idea on this already): 80% of your benefits in life come from 20% of your activities. So, why are you wasting 80% of your activities?!?
Find the 20% of the stuff that you’re doing that’s really working and do more of it!! Very simply.
Some Real-Life Applications
Business
Do you know where your revenue comes from? Find out. Do you know where you spend your time? Find out. Here’s what the book would suggest: You make at least 80% of your profits in 20% of your activity, and in 20 percent of your revenues. The trick is to figure out which 20%!
Learning
How do you read a book? Do you go from cover to cover? Why? You’re wasting a lot of time. 80% of the valuable content can be found in 20% of the book...and, according to Koch, absorbed in 20% of the time it takes most people to read the entire book.
Tip: Unless you’re reading a book for pleasure, read the conclusion then the intro, check out the graphs and pictures and then the conclusion again and maybe some sections a little deeper if you find it particularly interesting. If you’re reading a novel or a book for pleasure, read at your leisure. If you are looking for the most efficient way to learn, think 80/20.
Another Tip: The same rules apply with your kids' studies!
Social
20% of your friends account for 80% of your enjoyment and satisfaction.
Tip: Might sound harsh, but why wouldn’t you spend a lot more time with the group that gives you so much pleasure and a lot less time with the other?!?
Your Diet
My diet? Yes, your diet. My guess is that you spend a lot of time bouncing from one diet to another--never really receiving a whole lot of consistent energy as a result. The reality: 20% of your healthy eating habits account for 80% of your health gains.
Guess what? If you ignored the fad diets and just focused on the fundamentals, you’d see a lot of results. Consistently.
Are you drinking enough water (at least 8 cups a day)? Eating breakfast? Eating a lot of fruits and vegetables? Avoiding sugar? And, avoiding saturated fat?
You do these things and you’re 80% there. And, you'll be surprised how quickly your energy will increase (not to mention how quickly the number of compliments from your spouse/significant other will increase!).
Tip: Focus on the 20%. Drink 8 cups of water every day this week.
Already doing that? Good. Eat breakfast every day this week. Got that down? Good. Eat a salad with lunch and dinner. etc. etc.
…
More Wisdom:
"The few things that work fantastically well should be identified, cultivated, nurtured, and multiplied."
“The 80/20 Principle, like the truth, can make you free. You can work less. At the same time, you can earn more and enjoy more. The only price is that you need to do some serious 80/20 thinking.”
So, get to work! Figure out where you can focus your efforts and get more for your precious time and energy.
Will 20% of the people who read this account for 80% of the results achieved by applying the principle in their lives…hmmmmm…Not these thinkers!
Remember: Less Effort, More Results = Good.
Find your 20%’s and multiply your results.
Brian Johnson is a (Professional) Student of Life. He used to build businesses. Now he’s building his life while inspiring and empowering others to discover and live at their highest potential.
In his past lives, Brian raised over $7.5 million to finance the two leading online social networks he created: eteamz and Zaadz.
As a 24-year-old law school dropout, Brian created eteamz —which he grew into a company that now (profitably) serves over 3 million teams and their families involved in youth athletics and counts Little League Baseball® as a client.
After selling eteamz in 2000, Brian spent a few years as a philosopher, immersing himself in philosophy, psychology, mysticism and optimal living. He created ThinkArete.com, a site where he began distilling the universal truths of optimal living. Over 10,000 people signed up to receive his daily newsletter, The Philosopher’s Notes, where he broke down the wisdom of his favorite teachers, showing how everyone (from Nietzsche to Buddha to Rumi) is saying the same thing.
In an effort to integrate his philosophical and entrepreneurial selves (yes, he’s a Gemini :) ), in 2004 Brian created Zaadz—a company named after the Dutch word for seed committed to leveraging world-class social networking tools to connect, inspire and empower people committed to transforming their lives and our planet. (Think: MySpace for people who want to change the world.)
Feeling the dharmic pull to immerse himself back into studying and living the universal truths, Brian sold Zaadz to Gaiam, Inc. (Nasdaq: GAIA) in the summer of 2007.
Before all of that, Brian graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude from UCLA where he studied Psychology and Business. He’s been on MSNBC’s The Most with Alison Stewart, and has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal (a couple times), The San Francisco Chronicle, and various other places on everything from philosophy to business to his vision on how to change the world.
He reads a lot and has fun integrating universal truths into his day-to-day life and also likes to hike, laugh, write, think, draw and teach. He’ll be re-launching ThinkArete.com later this year and publishing his first book: “Areté: The Ten Universal Principles to Living at Your Highest Potential” in early 2009. He’s 33.