The Pareto Principle, also called the 80/20 rule, says that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the population. It was originally noticed and used to point out wealth disparity. Nowadays it’s most commonly used in business as 80% of sales come from 20% of clients. The crazy thing is that this seemingly wild distribution pops up naturally in a whole slew of situations. In this post, I’ll detail some ways that you can use it to become more mindful of your belongings and your effort. The main idea will be not necessarily to get rid of the 80% that is providing only 20% of the results, though that may be a valid option, but rather to treat the top 20% like the queens and kings they are!
Clothing: Most of us have our favorite go to clothing. The items that we wear first out of the laundry, maybe even a couple times between loads. Whether they’re our favorite color, a great fit, super comfortable, or go with just about everything. We can probably also easily pinpoint lesser used items, whether there’s something not quite to our liking about them or they’re for special occasions: tuxedo, snowpants, bridesmaid dresses. Once you pinpoint the top performing clothing and the bottom of the pack, there’s a few things you should do or think about.
- What makes the top 20% your favorite go tos? This will help you buy more favorites in the future
- Are they easily accessible? Since these items will be worn frequently, they should be the easiest to find, retrieve, and put away.
- Is it time to let go some of the 80% that you aren’t wearing frequently?
- Are you keeping it for past or fantasy you? Try to be honest with yourself about the likelihood of you using the item currently or in the near future, potentially even set a date to use it.
- Does it make more sense to rent this item the few times you need it rather than own it?
- Do you feel guilty because the item is almost to your taste or was gifted to you or you spent money on it? You’ll be doing yourself and the garment a favor by passing it on to another owner who will use it more.
- Count it as a lesson of what doesn’t work for you rather than a failure
- Can you relocate the lesser used items to another place so they are not clouding your brain during your daily outfit picking sessions?
Productivity: We can also do this exercise with our to do list. Large to do lists can be very overwhelming. A common tip is to pick your three most important tasks and focus on completing those in a day. Using the Pareto principle, you could focus your attention on the top 20% of your prioritized task list. The rest of the list can become nice to haves in case you finish the first set quickly. When picking your priorities, it is crucial to distinguish between urgent and important tasks. Urgent tasks grab our attention and feel important, but they often aren’t, which means we may be wasting our time doing them. Call and emails are examples of urgent tasks. Questions to ask yourself when considering what to focus your time on:
- What are my goals?
- Which tasks drive me toward my goals fastest?
- Are there tasks that I can drop or have someone else do?
- In the past, which type of tasks have gotten the best results?
People: Knowing your top 20% friends or clients can guide you in two opposing ways. You may choose to focus mostly on the top people and nurture the connections that are currently giving you the most value back. Alternatively you could send your attention to your other relationships to see if you can elevate them higher.
Cleaning: You can fake a lot of cleanliness in a short amount of time by using the 80/20 rule. It might depend on where your mess usually congregates, but I find clearing off surfaces, scrubbing the toilet, and making your bed to be some of the quickest big win cleaning you can do.
Spending: Reviewing your expenses against your goals and values can be an eye opening and terrifying activity to do. If you separate out the 20% of money that you spent that gave you the most value, it might be easier to cut down on some of the expenses that aren’t bringing much value. And then you’ll have more money to stash away for those important expenditures!
Your turn: Where do you use the 80/20 rule to get the most bang for your effort buck?