Making the 80/20 Rule Work for You

The 80/20 Rule Is For Action Takers

If you aren’t familiar with the 80/20 rule, it’s the concept that comes from the Pareto Principle, stating that 80% of your outcomes come from 20% of your inputs. As applied to your online marketing business, you can think of it as it relates to what you do each day. You can also apply this to measuring and improving your day to day life.

Typically, about 80% of your income will come from 20% of what you do. In other words, if I am working at my computer about 6 hours a day, only about an hour and twenty minutes of what I do will account for the type of work that makes me any money. The idea is to figure out which activities lead to income generation, and which can be better done by others or not at all.

The 8/20 Rule in Action

The 80/20 rule is a concept that suggests two out of ten items, on any general to-do list, will turn out to be worth more than the other eight items put together.

The sad fact is that most people procrastinate on the top 10 or 20 percent of items that are the most valuable and important, the “vital few,” and busy themselves instead with the least important 80 percent, the “trivial many,” that contribute very little to their success.

Entrepreneur and author Richard Koch discussed this in his 1999 book entitled Living The 80/20 Way: Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed More, Enjoy More. In this book Koch explains how we can apply the 80/20 rule to other aspects of our life. He suggests that we can improve our health, relationships, and our level of income by taking this seriously.

The 80-20 rule maintains that 80% of all outcomes (outputs) come from 20% of causes (inputs). In the 80-20 rule, you prioritize the 20% of factors that will produce the best results. A principle of the 80-20 rule is to identify an entity’s best assets and use them efficiently to create maximum value. This “rule” is a precept, not a hard-and-fast law of mathematics or statistics. With this being said, you will find this precept to be one that you can count on the overwhelming majority of the time. It will save you time and make you money if you’re in business, and enhance your life experience in others ways as well.

Online we are able to see the results of what we do in our businesses very easily. Take a look at each activity you engage in to see if it is income producing or busywork. Everyone will have a different set of criteria they use for this, but remember that we can improve what we can measure. I encourage you to embrace the 80/20 rule as you move forward in your life each day. These ideas are sound and may completely change what you are able to achieve as you reach your full potential for you best life experience.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, bestselling author, publisher, and entrepreneur serving people on six continents along their journey to authorship and entrepreneurship. Take a look at my most popular ongoing training and please consider coming aboard.