The 80/20 Principle summary

People tend to expect the world to be balanced.

But in fact, balance is not the natural state of the world – imbalance is.

By now you’re probably thinking that this is all well and good, but how can the 80/20 principle relate to you and your everyday life?

Let’s look at your professional life first, as the way you currently work is probably far from efficient. Think about it: if you achieve 80 percent of the results with just 20 percent of the effort you put in, it means that 80 percent of your work is egregiously inefficient.

Now you know how to apply the 80/20 principle to your own productivity, but you’re probably wondering how you can apply it in a business.

In fact, there are multiple ways you can do this, but perhaps the most important is optimizing the product range of your business.

As everyone knows, big companies are often very complex. This means managers must be adept at managing complexity, and they often even enjoy the challenge and intellectual stimulation it provides.

But is accepting or even inviting complexity really the best way to become a successful company?

Now you know how you can apply the 80/20 principle to narrow your product range and increase profitability. But what about all the other areas of business?

Luckily, the 80/20 principle is so versatile that you can use it in virtually any area or function of business to increase the likelihood of success.

As you saw in the business examples, the 80/20 principle is normally applied by analyzing which 20 percent of inputs generates 80 percent of outputs. But in your daily life, it is difficult to perform an analysis like this.

This means you need something else: 80/20 thinking.

You’re probably not a stranger to the concept of time management, often promoted by self-help books. The basic idea is to help you achieve more in the time you have, and this technique is proven to work: it increases productivity by around 15 to 25 percent.

But there is an even better way to get efficient.

Most people define their quality of life by their overall happiness. Interestingly though, very few of us actually try to change our lives to make ourselves happier.

In fact, most people spend a lot of time doing things that make them unhappy. For example, a lot of people have jobs that make them miserable. Most office workers spend their days sitting in a cubicle, mindlessly performing tasks and waiting for the day or week to end.