The 80-20 Rule in Time Management

The 80-20 Rule in Time Management is a very important set of strategies necessary to speed you on your way to the accomplishment  of your objectives and goals and hence the realization of your dreams.

There seems to be no limit to the long list of activities on which you can choose to spend your time. Therefore, there will seldom be a day during your life when you feel "caught up."

Think back. Can you ever remember a day when you felt that you had accomplished all the things you needed to do and would like to have done? I certainly cannot remember one. However, what's important is not that everything gets done during a specific day, but that the activities that are most important to the accomplishment of your dreams and goals have been completed on a schedule set by you.

To feel good about how you use time does not require being busy every moment, or constantly playing "catch-up." Positive feelings and the mental rewards associated with real accomplishments are produced through effectiveness, since only effectiveness produces results.

Think of it. If you can double your effectiveness, by definition you can accomplish twice as much in the same amount of time. You will double the speed at which you accomplish your objectives, and you will cut in half the time it takes you to achieve your dreams and goals.

To double your effectiveness, apply the 20/80 rule. Just 20 percent of the activities on which you could choose to spend your time will produce 80 percent of the results you're after. Conversely, spending time and energy on the other 80 percent of your possible activities will produce only 20 percent of the results you're after including only 20 percent of the total sense of satisfaction from accomplishment.

When it comes to achieving your dreams and goals, just 20 percent of your activities will take you along your pathway faster and farther than others. Identify that 20 percent and then spend the majority of your time and mental and physical energy each day on their accomplishment. Focusing first on the commencement and completion of that 20 percent is what transforms energy-wasting efficiency into results-producing effectiveness.

In the purest sense, it would be a waste of your time, talent, and energy to spend time on anything not in the top 20 percent of the activities on your list, at least until that 20 percent has been totally completed. That's the point.