Eighty twenty

I think I might have done too much rest (that is, from blogging) thanks to my previous post. My other side had been quite filled up, it's really sick season these past few weeks both in the clinics and in the hospital. Actually had just been back from a seminar and some respite, I might as well post on the same topic as promised.

The world literally had trained us to keep busy if we want to go up the ladder of success. Tim Ferris puts this in a graphic tone as follows: "If you want to move up the ladder in most of our corporate world, and assuming they don't really check what you're doing (let's be honest), just run around the office holding a cell phone to your head and carrying papers from 9 am to 5 pm. Now that is one busy employee". Unfortunately ( or quite fortunately), that's not how you increase your results and attain objectives.

Being effective is different from being efficient. Effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goals. Efficiency is performing a given task ( whether important or not) in the most economical matter possible. Sadly, being efficient without regard to effectiveness is the default mode of the universe.

It is no different to you to see so many people working in a company or more so in the government, when you visit their offices. It would surprise you why even with so much manpower, you find yourself with so much people waiting like you in a queue where the service staff seem to have no regard for your personal time. Then observing them closely, some of them just chatting with each other, some just having their eyes fixed to their documents not even looking at you when they talk to you, and most just running around in circles. All for the routine of just to consume their 9 to 5 regimen. It is a wonder why it takes months just to get some simple government permits done. The society is infected with AIDS (As If Doing Something).

Applying this to your life, there are two truisms to take note of.
1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.
2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.

Enter this principle of a renowned economist who lived from 1848 to 1923, Mr Vilfredo Pareto. The principle he conceived and presented then is now one of the secrets of the most successful people in the world. His Pareto principle is more popularly called the "80/20 principle". 


His principle originally describes how uneven the income distribution was in all parts of the world. "80% of the wealth and income was produced by 20% of the population". But this proportion is found actually in almost all aspects of human life.

• 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs.
• 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort and time.
• 80% of company profits come from 20% of the products and customers.
• 80% of all stock marketgains are realized by 20% of the investors and 20% of an individual portfolio.

So with this in mind, here are two basic questions which you should work on to free your precious time (as recommended by Mr Tim Ferris in his book "The Four Hour Work week)".

1. Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?
2. Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?

Just set an entire day to ponder on these questions and write and record your answers in each aspect of your life ( family, business or career). Your goal is to find your inefficiencies in order to eliminate them and to find your strengths so you can multiply them. 

Being overwhelmed with things to do is often as unproductive as doing nothing and is far more unpleasant. Being selective- doing less- is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.

It;s easy to get caught in a flood of minutiae, and the key to not feeling rushed is remembering that lack of time is actually lack of priorities. Take time to stop and smell the flowers...



"One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but decrease. The height of cultivation runs to simplicity. - Bruce Lee