Notes on Productivity, a.k.a. The 80/20 Rule, a.k.a. Don't Be Superman

My world of hyper-tasking is out of control: daily I read 6 websites at once while chatting online with 4 people, all while replying to emails and people's questions shouted out across the office. Total brain overload, something that afflicts so many of us in the age of the Internet. *Sigh*.

Thank goodness for the "ah-ha" moment I experienced when I came across The 80/20 Rule (Pareto's law) while reading the book The Four-hour Work Week.  I was hoping to learn even more hyper-tasking techniques, but the 80/20 Rule is what stuck.   Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto figured out over a hundred years ago that 80% of Italy's land was owned by 20% of the population.  And thus the common-sense economic theory was born: in many cases, approximately 80% of the outcome is produced by 20% of the parts.  WHOA.

Discovering Pareto's law was a personal victory for me.  Finally, here was a formula to help fight the overload, a proven theory TELLING me that only 20% of my efforts produce the majority of my success.  No more nagging myself to focus on four things at once; this was a permission slip to begin cutting the fat.  The writing was on the wall! (or the Web, as the case may be).

I immediately applied the 80/20 rule to something at work which involves many things contributing to one bottom line, and lo' and behold the math was exact:  20% of my contributors produced 80% of my profits, every year.   Amazing!   I decided right then to focus only on those 20% for the coming year, and in doing so felt my stress levels falling and being replaced by motivation and an "I can do this" feeling.   As soon as I narrowed my focus, the project became manageable and achieving my goal was now realistic -- maybe I could even exceed it?  I felt empowered to not feel bad about eliminating part of the workload -- Pareto said it's ok!

Beyond work, I started to apply the 80/20 rule to other areas of my life that aren't measured by math.  So instead of feeling guilty for not reading all the magazines I subscribe to, I only read what gives me the most enjoyment (isn't that why we read magazines anyway? To enjoy them?).  I even cleaned out my closets keeping in mind the 20% of contents that I use or need the most.

Instead of trying to do everything, I now find freedom in the 20% of any given thing and forgetting the rest.  I keep trying to not  be superwoman even when I have 26 browser tabs open and the phone is ringing.  The best hyper-tasker isn't rewarded for the ability to do 1,000 things at once but for being very good at the most important few.   To me, the 80/20 rule provides a clear, tangible path to bringing the "quality versus quantity" concept come to life.

Can we go back to single-tasking?

image by illustir on flickr