Angelo Gorriceta

BSBA MM

Real-life applications of the 80/20 principle

Productivity and time management is the basis and the core of the Pareto Principle before, also known

as the 80/20 rule. The Pareto principle states that in any situation, 20 percent of the inputs or activities,

are

responsible for 80 percent of the outputs or results. In nature 20% of the pea pods generated 80% of the

healthy peas. This also is true to discover that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by just 20% of the

population.

And we can even see this concept everywhere in our daily lives.

For example: You wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time. In a book, 20% of its pages contain 80% of

the most important information. 20% of the company's customers, produce 80% of company's revenue.

When it comes to YouTube, 20% percent of my videos generate 80% of my views and subscribers. The

Pareto principle shows up repeatedly, in almost every field. But the inverse is also true. That means that

the other 80% is only generating 20% of the results. However, it should be noted that this is not a

universal law, and it can differ in many situations. It is not always going to be 80/20, it could be 70/30,

90/10, basically anything. The point is that many results come from minority of causes. And the minority

of results come from many causes on how people can use it in everyday life. Time is our most precious

resource. We all have the same amount of time in our day as most of us do not use that time efficiently.

There is a difference between being busy and being productive. Most people think that working more

hours will get them more results. However, it is not about the time that is put in; it is about how well

people spend that time so if they have not applied the Pareto principle in life yet, then that person is
most likely just busy. However, when the principle is correctly utilized it enables everyone to do more by

doing less. If we go back to our previous example, we said that 20% of a book will give us 80% of the

information. That means that 80% of a book will only give us 20% of its value. Let us say it takes you 10

hours to read 100% of that book. By applying the Pareto principle, you know that 80% of the most

important information can be found in just 2 hours. Yes, you could go deeper and learn more in depth if

you wanted to but note that you will most likely have to spend 8 hours to get those extra 20% of the

information. It's up to you to decide if you think it's worth it. If you're still in school, you can also take

advantage of the 80/20 rule. The exams never contain 100% of the content. Otherwise it would be a 50-

page exam. Students can get a good grade by identifying, which 20% of the content they were studying

in class is the most important. Studying the right topic for two hours will get you a much better grade,

than studying the wrong topic for a whole week. Again, people could reread every single page of the

textbook and get that 100%. But if being a top student is not priority, then it just might not be worth the

time.

This is the Pareto principle aka the 80/20 rule. It can be applied to almost any area of life, whether it is in

business or free time. If you can identify the 20% that produces the greatest outcome, you can spend

more time doing that, to create an even greater pay-off. It also helps you cut back on the 80% of things

that waste time, which create only 20% of the results. It encourages you to think efficiently and focus on

what is important. In essence thinking about what some of the things are that a company or a person

can double down on, and which ones that should eliminated in order to be the most efficient a person

can be is how the 80/20 principle is utilized essentially becoming a Philosophy.