The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 Rule says, "If all items are arranged in order of value, 80 percent of the value would come from only 20 percent of the items, while the remaining 20 percent of the value would come from 80 percent of the items." Sometimes it's a little more, sometimes a little less, but 80 percent of the time I think you will find the 80/20 rule is correct.

The 80/20 rule suggests that in a list of ten items, doing two of them will yield most (80 percent) of the value.  Find these two, label them A, get them done.  Leave most of the other eight undone, because the value you'll get from them will be significantly less than that of the two highest-value items.

These examples, drawn from everyday life, should enable you to feel more comfortable about concentrating on high-value tasks, even at the cost of ignoring many lower-value tasks:

80 percent of sales comes from 20 percent of customers
80 percent of production is in 20 percent of the product line
80 percent of sick leave is taken by 20 percent of employees
80 percent of file usage is in 20 percent of files
80 percent of dinners repeat 20 percent of recipes
80 percent of dirt is on 20 percent of highly used floor areas
80 percent of dollars is spent on 20 percent of the expensive meat and grocery items

It is important to remind yourself again and again not to get bogged down on low-value activities but to focus on the 20 percent where the high value is to be found.


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