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Living the 80/20 Way
Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed More, Enjoy More
Living the 80/20 Way shows you how to apply the 80/20 principle, an economic concept which states that the vast majority of results come from a small proportion of effort, to your personal life. With pragmatic, easily applicable advice about how to create more with less, the author encourages the reader to focus on what’s important and to think outside the box.
- Life coaches or other motivational coaches
- Anyone who feels unsatisfied with how they spend their time
- Anyone who feels overwhelmed and exhausted by a busy schedule
Richard Koch, a former partner at consulting firm Bain & Co, is highly regarded author, entrepreneur and investor.
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Living the 80/20 Way
Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed More, Enjoy More
- Read in 12 minutes
- Audio & text available
- Contains 7 key ideas
Synopsis
Living the 80/20 Way shows you how to apply the 80/20 principle, an economic concept which states that the vast majority of results come from a small proportion of effort, to your personal life. With pragmatic, easily applicable advice about how to create more with less, the author encourages the reader to focus on what’s important and to think outside the box.
Key idea 1 of 7
Working all day, every day makes you less productive. To achieve more, you need to do less.
Some 50 years ago, computers could do little in terms of processing, yet were massive machines. But today we carry incredibly powerful computers around in our pockets!
The story of how computers evolved matches a wider trend in human activity: doing more with less. And in fact, the history of agriculture followed a similar path.
More than 300 years ago, close to 98 percent of the labor force worked in the fields, harvesting food. Due to technological advances, today in developed countries only 2 to 3 percent of the working population is involved with agriculture. And yet we grow and harvest more food than ever!
This is the driving force behind the 80/20 principle: the best 20 percent of our efforts produce 80 percent of the results. And by applying this principle everywhere, we can transform our lives.
We tend to believe that if we spend as much time as possible working, we’ll be the most productive. Yet if you apply the 80/20 principle, you would realize that the best way to achieve more is to work less!
Say you’re a freelancer and you need to get a project done in a week. If you give yourself all week to do it, you’ll procrastinate, spending your time fiddling around and not working on what matters.
But if you give yourself only 20 percent of the week to complete the project (just one day), then you’ll work diligently and efficiently. The end results will be better, and you’ll have more time to spend on other things.
Interested in how the 80/20 way can work for you? Next we’ll show you exactly how to apply this principle to the most important areas of your life.
Key ideas in this title
- Working all day, every day makes you less productive. To achieve more, you need to do less.
- To follow the 80/20 principle, set a destination, chart a route to get there, and then go for it!
- Focus your attention on your happiness islands: what is it that gives you the most pleasure?
- Use the 80/20 principle to invest in the long term to earn big, or save incrementally to reach a goal.
- Instead of trying to please everyone, concentrate on the relationships that matter the most.
- Things will not make you happy. Stress certainly won’t, either. Simplicity is the key.
- Final summary
