The 80/20 Rule

[Mounds]

I recently read an awesome post on the 80/20 rule. See it here:

How to apply the 80/20 rule to earn more, work less, and dominate | I Will Teach You To Be Rich

What struck me after reading it is how inefficient some of the goals I set for myself really are. I recently decided I was going to try to make an extra $500 a month for the next year. I would do it by doing side jobs, selling junk, selling crafts, ect. All outside of work.... 80% effort, 20% result.
At the same time, I've got my fulltime job plus an oppurtunity to make commission. That means that I work my regular hours and while I'm there, I also sell a product that is in high demand. Last year, hardly trying, I netted $6000 ($500/month...). 80% results from 20% effort.
So my grand scheme was to bust my balls on a monthly basis, coming up with an extra $500 a month with the golden oppurtunity hiding in plain sight. The idea in the article is to find what 20% results in 80% of your results and drop everything else. Then, focus more on that 20%. So far, my commission has been a result of the odd sales call to big customers. I didn't even sell everything last year. What if I created a website to direct potential customers to and got a bit more assertive with the calls? Could I make $10,000 without working an extra hour?
I'm currently downloading some goal software. The first wave of goals is going to be applying the 80/20 rule. One goal will be determining which blogs I'm going to keep in my RSS feed. For instance, 2-3 blogs out of a fifteen are giving me great ideas whereas the rest... not so much.
If anyone has tips on how to use this rule, let me know.

-Tim

[StevenHandel]

It's a useful heuristic, but it can go terribly wrong if you misidentify your variables.

[Brenton Russell]

I have found the 80/20 Principle to be a very useful tool for changing my work focus from being more efficient to be being more effective. By focusing on the 'Vital Few' tasks, goals, people, emails etc and reducing resources (namely my time!) on the 'Trivial Many' has seen my effectiveness dramatically increase.

Some of my tips for an office environment include:

1. Ruthlessly guard your most productive time. Identify the 20% of time where you are most resourceful and effective and during this time turn off emails, screen calls, move to another office space etc

2. Focus on your 'Vital Few' Colleagues. Write a list of everyone you interact with at work and identify who are the 20% (Vital Few) of people who provide true value to you. Now reallocate your time and resources away from the Trivial Many to focus on the Vital Few.

Here are some of my other 80/20 Principle Tips for Workplace Effectiveness or read about my Workplace Revolution using the 80/20 Principle.