The 50-30-20 Rule (Blog)

[Keith]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

The 50-30-20 Rule

[Keith]

I'd like to apply this principle in my life and wanted clarification re: something.

How do you classify things that individually make no difference but will make a difference if pursued cumulatively?

eg. If I watch my food intake today, it's not going to matter in 5 years time. But if I watch my food intake every day for those 5 years then it will matter a lot!

How do you prioritise those things where doing it on any given day doesn't matter ; but doing it on most days does?

Thanks.

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by Keith

eg. If I watch my food intake today, it's not going to matter in 5 years time. But if I watch my food intake every day for those 5 years then it will matter a lot!

Isn't that true of everything? Nothing scheduled really makes a difference on a daily basis... I'd look at everything as a system. Food intake would fall into the A task list in this post - Steve even lists it there, as changing his diet.

[Keith]

<blush> I missed that he specifically mentioned diet. Thanks.

In my defence, all (I think) of the other examples are projects - 'add a new income stream', 'run a marathon', 'write a book' etc. rather than ongoing life changes.

[Sologretto]

I'm really interested in trying the 50-30-20 plan. I'm trying to figure out HOW to implement it though...

I own a Computer Networking Company. Hence I make my money on an hourly basis for services performed. What category would I consider my billable hours? They really aren't going to make a beneficial difference in 5 years. Heck they might not mean much in 2. (unless I DON'T do them of course)... My first thought would be to put them into category C.

On one hand I kind of like thinking like that as it would mean I would focus 2 hours/day getting billables (Letting my employees cover the difference), 3 hours/day of my time focusing on stuff like near term projects (which I have more than a few that need time/love), and 5 hours/day focusing on my life dreams (which is really where I DO want to focus).

At the end of the day though I DO have to pay the bills.

Is this a realistic hope for a Service Company Owner?

At this point I have my full time employee spending 70% of his time focusing on 2 year goals regarding the company, a part time webdesigner earning almost pure billable hours, a secretary helping deal with all but 1 hour/day of non-billable type C work, and am spending my time split about 70/30 between Billable's and Type B/C work for the company.

Thanks,
Scott Reimers
Onsite Technical Services
Computers that Just Work &ndash; Onsite Technical Services &ndash; 775-722-6317