Recognize your priorities with the pareto principle
The ability to empower yourself in terms of time, effort, resources and money is only possible by prioritizing. Among the thousands of things you have to do, we can all agree that each of these tasks has different levels of value.
Think about it, the value of half an hour spent ordering clothes has a different level of value than spending half an hour with a potentially high-value client.
Simply put, some tasks yield more return than others. By focusing your time and effort only on the tasks that generate the greatest return, you will make your business more efficient. This idea was popularized by the Pareto principle, aka the 80/20 rule.
What is the Pareto Principle?
The Pareto principle is that 20% of what you do brings 80% of the results. This means that we usually get a 20% return on most of our efforts. You should spend the vast majority of your time doing tasks that fall into the 20% category. By doing so, you will get the most valuable results. About 80% of your time needs to be spent on the 20% of high-value tasks.
The key to doing this is the following:
1.Identify your highest value tasks. Value is determined by the amount of revenue and profit a task brings you. You should ask yourself the question: “Does what I am doing make me money?” If the answer is no, then there is a good chance you shouldn’t do it.
- Scale to get even more value out of them. Scaling means finding another way to accomplish the task that leads to better results using fewer resources. Sometimes it can be as simple as doing it at a different time, in a different way or with different people. But the goal is to spend less and make more profit.
- Be consistent. This is the hardest part but the most effective part. The key is to find a routine that you feel comfortable with. This helps you do the highest value tasks on a weekly basis.
For example, you can set high-value tasks every day and finish them before 10:30 in the morning. But the key is to do the highest value tasks first, so that the other things you spend your time on don’t really matter.
Ultimately, you achieve excellence when we focus on doing the activities that bring the biggest return – the activities that fall into the 20% category that bring 80% of the results.
