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Leslie Harradine
The Pareto Principle and Getting Things Done
In the early 20th century, Vilfredo Pareto noticed that 20 percent of the people of Italy owned 80 percent of the wealth. The concept of 80/20 became known as the Pareto Principle. The Pareto Principle seems to play out in many ways through life. One simple example is we tend to wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. This concept of disproportion is interesting to examine specifically in how it relates to our day-to-day work practices.
While the rule is not absolute, it can be used as an indicator to help determine where you are spending your time. Are you spending 80% of your time on 20% of the items on your To Do list? Do you find yourself focusing 80% of your time on 20% of your clients? Are 20% of your co-workers the ones that tend to interrupt you 80% of the time?
To ensure that the things that are important (but not necessarily a crisis) are moving forward, it’s critical that those items are put on a list and the list is reviewed regularly. It’s too easy to let things that are not an emergency slip when 20% of our to-do’s seem to consistently draw most of our time and attention. How can you be sure that you’re spending time on the right 20%? Getting everything out of your head, putting it on a Next Action list and reviewing that list daily as well as reviewing the Projects list weekly is crucial in making sure you’re focusing on and doing the right things. If 20% of the time you expend produces 80% of your results, it’s vital to know what your 100% is. Doing the Mind Sweep is such a great tool for getting a handle on identifying everything on your plate. Then, reviewing your list of Next Actions as often as possible helps to make sure that you are focusing on the things that are important. Just by looking at the list the chances of moving on those things increases. When those items aren’t on a list, it’s too easy to get caught up in the “busy trap” and not realize you’ve missed an opportunity to make that one call that could keep a significant piece of a project moving forward.
The same thing is true for the weekly review. By taking the time to review your projects and all the significant pieces of those projects, chances increase that in the next week you will make some progress on projects that may not be due immediately but need to stay on track so they don’t become the next “crisis du jour”.
The 80/20 idea is not good or bad. It can be used as an indicator that can help us clarify those areas on which we’re spending too much time and those which aren’t getting enough of our time and attention. The good news is that when we notice any disparity between where we’re spending our time and the results we’d like to be producing, we can start to make shifts that will enable us make smarter choices and increase the possibility that we will be achieving the outcomes we want to be accomplishing.
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