The 80/20 principle of life
I finally picked up my copy of Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris a few weeks ago. Since then I’ve read through it a few times.
In conjuction with Tim’s elimination rule, he presents the 80/20 principle, otherwise known as the pareto principle.
The Pareto principle states that, for many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. It is a common rule of thumb in business.
Named for the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, he first observed that 80% of Italy’s income went to 20% of the population.
When pertaining to productivity, 20% of a person’s time produces 80% of their output. In my case, it’s a bit more lopsided (90/10). Or 20% of your clients produce 80% of your revenues. It’s an easy principle to apply to different areas.
Back to FHWW; Ferris suggests that we begin to eliminate those items that fall into the 80% rather than the 20%. If you have 80% of your projects that are truly underperforming yet still taking up 80% of your time, get rid of them so that the time can be used for other purposes.
80/20 principle of social life
This same principle can be applied to all other areas of life. Take frienships for example. 80% of your happiness comes from 20% of your friends. Most people know them as their best friends.
If in work we were attempting to eliminate projects or clients in order to maximize our productive 20%, with friendships we want to manage our time with friends to focus on the 20% that is providing the majority of our happiness.
Now you might be saying: “come on, I already know this! They’re called best friends for a reason”. The point here though isn’t to eliminate lower productivity relationships but to maximize productive interactions with all your connections.
Where to apply the 80/20 of life
- Social life - Foster healthy, productive relationships that provide you with the majority of needed validation and happiness while also utilizing the least amount of effort. ROI is a business principle but applies just as well in this case. You want to strive for the highest ROI possible in all your friendships. We can also apply the principle in individual friends. 20% of our time spent with them is going to produce 80% of the output: happiness, validation, business connections, etc.
- Diet - Manage your diet by planning meals that maximize sustenance and value, again ROI. 20% of your food intake is providing 80% of your needs. Fruits and vegetables provide much more raw energy that meats or processed foods. God forbid if you’re even thinking about eating that pack of oreos! Foods with the least amount of processing provide the most sustenance. Take for example Cap’n Crunch, the grains and corn have to be grown, dehydrated, stripped of anything but fibers, reinstated with vitamins, becomes part of a mixture, dyed, cooked, and then package so that you can eat it. The grains and corn that originally made up our cereal provide worlds more value nutrition-wise than does a similar amount of cereal. Meat is also a processed meat; just not as intensive as our Cap’n Crunch cereal. Don’t get me wrong, it’s ok to have a piece of cake once in a while. What we’re attempting here is maximizing our diet’s output. That requires eating a majority of unprocessed, vitamin rich foods. (I didn’t say all your food!)
- Exercise - I always see my friends doing everything possible to stay fit and bulk up. Everything from weights to running and sports, muscle milk, you name it. Rather than pulling ourselves apart in 20 different directions with our workouts, we need to focus on the 20% that is producing 80% of our output. If you’re planning an exercise routine that’s goal is to lose weight, you need to focus on high calorie burning activities. Burn the most calories possible in the least amount of time.
- Dating - Drop those first awkward meetings in the first date and get it done before hand using an online dating service. It’s quicker and you can take care of multiple prospects at the same time. Heck, if you’re adventurous enough you could even outsource this step to India. Get your needs and values out in front. Define yourself ahead of time so that time isn’t wasted in testing the waters to see if you might be compatible with someone else. Blind dates have got to be one of the worst ideas ever. They completely inefficient. We want to build a strong relationship in the least amount of time possible.
Where else can we apply the pareto principle?
You tell me. Travel? At the grocery store? Give me some ideas in the comments below. Cheers!
Good post, Cody. I read Tim’s FHWW for the first time myself a few weeks back. It’s a great book, and one you can learn a lot from. Like most texts of this kind, I don’t think everything applies, but there’s certainly more in there for most people, I’d argue, that similar books in the genre.
Interestingly, I was going to write an article on the Pareto Principle myself this week. Now you’ve beaten me to the punch, I’m going to have to be sly about it, so it doesn’t look like I cheated.
That said I’d never considered it in terms of my gym use before - of course 20% of what I do accounts for 80% of my gains! It seems so obvious now.
Burning “the most calories possible in the least amount of time” is sound advice. A lot of people seem to fall into two camps at the gym - never going at all (or rarely), or going too often and for too long. With any weights regime you should be in and out of the gym in 45 minutes maximum - I’ve managed to get it down to half an hour myself, with the same results I used to get from 60 minutes onwards. With cardio it’s perhaps a little different, depending on your needs, but half an hour of intense cardio is, IMO, better than an hour of moderate stuff.
Having said that, I’m not sure how the Pareto Principle would translate to something a lot more pure like running. I mean, running is running, surely? I can’t see how you’d only be getting the benefit from 20% of the time your feet touch the ground!
Thanks Sheamus. Glad you liked it. I’ll be sure to check over your way for your “inspired” post.
Running itself is a very maximized sport, which is the point of the 80/20 principle. It’s exactly the kind of activity to be doing in order to maximize that 20% of the time, as opposed to playing basketball, where you’re running and stopping constantly.
I’ll be getting more into the physical training and diet areas soon, starting a couple series for both!
Cheers!