The Single Trick to Become 80% More Productive

There is one main tip for productive day/week/month/ year and life that is more important than any other. And we are about to share it now

1. 80/20 RULE

Have you heard of the 80/20 rule? An Italian economist Vildredo Pareto found that in economic activity, 80% of the wealth was controlled by 20% of the population.

Turns out his 80 20 rule can be applied to almost any situation.

2. 80/20 rule + planning

So how can we apply this principle to planning your life?

According to this principle, 80% of things that you do bring 20% of the results in your life. And conversely, 20% of things you do, bring 80% of results into your life. So if we would take an average, 2 things out of 10 on any general daily to-do list, will turn out to be worth a lot more that the other 8 items put together!

3. Where it all goes wrong

The worst part is that most people procrastinate on their top 20 percent of things that are the most important and busy themselves instead with the least important 80%.

It’s easy to write a huge to-do list and start from the easy task first because the tasks seem to be equivalent. Doesn’t it feel just as satisfying to cross out the small insignificant tasks, as it does with the big tasks? And then when we don’t have any more energy and time left in the day, we are forced to reschedule our 20% tasks for the next day.

4. Eat the 20% frog first

Here is where the proper scheduling comes into play. Always set the most important task to be done as the first thing on your to do list for the day. That way you have no reason to reschedule it because you’re getting your “hardest” thing out of the way.

You will also feel a relief getting your top 3 tasks out of the way and more satisfied about your day. And even if you have to reschedule the smaller tasks for tomorrow - well it’s fine, because those are secondary!

A good planning system will allow you to write your priority tasks separately from the general to-do list.

5. Dealing with that 80% frog

Well what do we do with the 80% frog? We still can’t get rid of things like laundry and taking your pet to the vet out the life completely, right?

It’s important to schedule and manage these tasks properly. If you know you are much more productive in the morning – do not schedule an appointment to the vet for 9 am. Instead, schedule it for 4 pm. By this time, you’d be able to complete your top 3 daily tasks and ready to take care of the 80% tasks.

See if you can also delegate some things or maybe even get rid of some things completely.

And always remember, even if you only have tackled one 20% task for your day - congratulate yourself! You are already making that 80% progress.

Photo Credit @tamaraclaren