The Secret is NOT Time Management!

How many "time management" books have you read? How 'bout a workshop dedicated to  helping you get organized...attended one of those sometime in your life? As well-meaning as all of those efforts are, they don't get to the real issue. Because you can only cram so much work into an hour. You can only speed up so fast.

What is the secret to working less, and at the same time, earning and enjoying more? Apply the 80/20 Rule. This principle --the Pareto law -- asserts that 80 percent of what you achieve comes from 20 percent of your time. Sounds contrary to what we normally expect, doesn't it? But it's true. It's one of those universal truths (and is supported by chaos theory). It applies at work, at home, in society at large. It's there, and real, and available, whether we exploit it or not.

Even though we've all heard of it, the 80/20 Rule is still one of business's best-kept secrets. What do we need to do to apply the 80/20 Rule?

We need to always be asking ourselves:

• what is the 20 percent that is leading to 80 percent?
• what are the vital few inputs or causes, as opposed to the trivial many?
• where is the melody being drowned out by all of the background noise?

Interested in learning more about the 80/20 Rule? Check out Richard Koch's The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less. Koch does a great job of outlining business uses for the rule, such as: strategy, quality, IT, cost reduction, service improvement, marketing and sales. The Secret IS the 80/20 Rule!

Photo on flickr by mangee

Comments

[Amy]

Always a good reminder!