Vilfredo Pareto was an economist of the last century who enunciated a curious rule that is now back in vogue. Pareto had noticed that the people around him were divided between the "many who possessed little" and the "few who possessed a lot", forming a ratio of 80/20 more or less.
From an economic point of view this rule has been slightly redefined to reach a ratio of 90/10. That is, it can be said that 10% of the population owns 90% of the wealth and 10% of the wealth is distributed among the 90% of the remaining population. No doubt it is a bad relationship, but unfortunately it is.
I think the photo in the post is very effective in explaining this principle. That is, we use 20% of our energy and time to do the hardest work, the one that really matters, and we use the remaining 80% of our remaining strength and time on longer activities.
simple and banal.
The Pareto principle can also be applied in the field of personal growth. Suffice it to say that we usually do 80% of the activities in 20% of our time while 80% of the remaining time is spent on doing only 20% of the tasks that remain to be done. As you can see, that's not a very good percentage, especially when we apply it to work.
How can this proportion be reversed?
First, a critical stance must be taken in relation to our work and the way our time is spent. The goal is to be more productive, but in less time, so that we can spend more hours doing our favorite activities or with ours.
family and friends. To do this, these tips can help us:
- Make a list of activities that need to be done throughout the day. Give them a hierarchy, according to importance.
- Determine which hours of the day you are most productive and use them for the most important tasks.
- Eliminate all time-wasting activities, such as checking email frequently, checking social networks, or even reading news and blogs all the time.
Even if it is difficult at first to accept, it is likely that these actions are the ones that take up 80% of your time. If you can truly eliminate these activities or at least reduce them, you will be amazed to see how much free time you have and how much your productivity will increase.
The Pareto Principle applied to emotional well-being
The 80/20 ratio is not only useful for organizing our time and being more productive, but it also allows us to reflect on our emotional well-being and the way we face everyday situations and problems. For example, when we decide to accomplish something, the most common tendency is to use 80% of our energy to think about the consequences of what we will do and only 20% to act to accomplish the task.
Don't get us wrong, thinking about the possible consequences of our actions is a natural and good thing, because it helps us make better decisions; however, the truth is that we often get caught up in a very pessimistic attitude, which generates negative feelings in us. We do not think objectively about the consequences but we magnify the impact of our actions, and this leads us to immobility causing us physical and mental fatigue.
In fact, numerous studies have shown that we have a tendency to exaggerate the emotional impact of events. So wouldn't it be better to use 80% of your energy to actually solve the problem than to imagine all the possible disasters that could occur?
Ask yourself more often how you are investing your time, after all, it is the most valuable asset we have.
