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The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle helps us greatly. The 80/20 rule says that 80% of the results come from 20% of the time or effort you put in. Things aren’t linear – each hour of work doesn’t produce the same amount of results – just compare answering email to having a sales meeting with a potential client. There are 193,071 books about productivity on Amazon, but read more than a few and they would all start to say basically the same thing. In corporations, 80% of the revenue often comes from 20% of the clients and 20% of the products. If you focus on that 20%, you can achieve tremendous results in much less time.

I am not proposing leaving the job half done, but to make the qualitative leap for a new trait or middah. Reading and applying merely three books on productivity (.00001% of all productivity books on Amazon) would make a tremendous improvement. While being joyous can be the work of a lifetime, the first 20% of the time and effort will help you reach a threshold that makes a tremendous difference in your life.  An “extreme” sense of joy is to remain joyous even when nothing is going your way. It will take you a lot of time and effort. However, consider if you would be joyous when nothing is wrong (most of the time) or when things are only a little wrong (the relatively minor stresses that come up). That would make a major impact on your life, but isn’t nearly as hard to reach. That smaller amount of effort gives you the majority of the benefits.

Make a list of the traits and middos you would like to integrate into your character. How little would you have to do for it to make a major difference in your life?
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If you don’t, let me tell you what you are missing!

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The problem comes back because you are putting on a band-aid instead of stitches. Short term, shallow fixes don’t last. They don’t resolve the underlying cause. Its like putting a band-aid on a deep cut. It may hold it closed for a little, but doesn’t actually solve the problem. Often, just a little more time, effort, or creativity will give you a long term answer. When someone needs help on the computer, don’t just do it for them – show them how. If you settle for a short term band-aid without considering how to permanently fix the issue, you are wasting time.

Crises that come up are quadrant I – important and urgent. Dealing with them doesn’t help you in the long run. View your quadrant I problems as quadrant II opportunities - the things that are important but not urgent. Use problems as a reminder to do the things you feel are important, but not so urgent. If you haven’t gotten to fully training someone to use the computer program, use this opportunity to do this part of the training.

What do you keep putting band-aids on? Stitch it instead!

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We get impatient when things take too long. We want to be doing the next thing, not waiting for it to happen. We don’t like people wasting our time.

Yet, do we ever get impatient wasting our own time? Did you ever get impatient while procrastinating? If you ever sat down to watch some TV because you didn’t feel like doing other things, did you let yourself get sucked in and waste lots of time?
Impatience means you value your time. Unfortunately, we only remember that when we stop running around and take a look at how we are currently using our time. Let your impatience remind you that your time is precious. You may want to spend your waiting moments to see how to use your time better. What could you stop doing? What action would move that important project forward? What things are just a waste of time?
Don’t let impatience be negative. Let it remind you to use your time better. Keep the message with you by constantly asking “Am I being productive, or just keeping busy?”

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Anyone responsible for overseeing a project or goal is a manager. You decide how you want to get to the goal, and then take action. “What’s the next action?” is a necessary question in your toolkit.

You can delegate to other people, allowing you to handle more or larger projects.
You can delegate the work, but not the responsibility. You must make sure things are moving forward. Maintaining a list of what you delegated is essential. You may want to meet to advise and check on the progress.
Being a manager isn’t just about the project – its also about the people. In addition to improving productivity skills, you will want to improve your people skills.

When you choose projects, that makes you a leader. Great leaders are those who have vision. Reactive projects are only responding to the past, and not looking to the future.

Leaders determine what to do, managers are responsible for making it happen.

You are a leader. What are you deciding to do?

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“Hey wait, I can do that too!”
With tremendous enthusiasm, I committed to expanding my reading. I have queue of 35 books, I can start by tacking those! However, at a reading speed of 420 wpm (granted, the average is about 150-250) that will take a LONG time. It brings to mind the 7th habit- Sharpen The Saw. If someone is chopping trees with a dull axe, it would be foolish for him to say “I’m busy, I can’t stop working to sharpen the axe!”

Instead of throwing myself into reading, I am going to take the smarter approach. It also happens to be a quadrant II activity, which has a longer lasting impact. I am going to use my motivation to practice and integrate speed reading and photo reading techniques.

Sounds funny – by taking a look at the work that I want to do, I have decided to push off starting. But it’s the smart decision – to learn first how to do the work better.

Are you mindlessly working on some goal or project when you should stop and learn more first?

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Batching
When you do similar tasks in a row, such as paying bills or making phone calls, you have some great benefits:
*You need to start less. Starting is the always the hardest part. You only need to agonize over starting once, and then you can keep cranking. Instead of having to work up the courage to pick up the phone five times, with batching, you only need to start once.
*Less set up time. All things have a set up or preparation time – getting out the check book and calculator, preparing the ingredients, or looking up the directions. If you do them all at once, or in bigger quantities, you will set up – both physically and mentally – fewer times.
*Its lets you immerse yourself into an action that normally is too short. When you make a phone call, you get into a mindset that helps you make the next calls even easier.

Make It A Race
Have something that’s really routine or mundane? Race the clock! Try to beat your best time. This adds challenge and excitement. You may find yourself having lots of fun!

Parkinson’s Law
“Work expands to fit the time allotted.” Beware of this law! It applies to meeting, checking email… everything.  Things will come up, you will be sidetracked to related issues, or ideas will come up that will cause you to spend more time. (For high value projects, it may be good, since you can start implementing new ideas right away.)You may also slow down if you have lots of time. Setting firm time limits will get you to work faster and find more creative solutions, so you finish sooner.

Pareto Principle – The 80/20 rule
Mentioned in part 3, use the Pareto principle to focus on the important parts for better results. Have you noticed that in person you usually make a sale, but not on the phone or by email? Then don’t waste your time with lots of long phone calls or emails answering questions, instead schedule a face to face meeting to make the sale.

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If you tally up your actual working time for the day, it will probably be a pretty solid number. Yet, you may be disappointed with what you accomplished.
How can you work so long, but be disappointed with the results?
It has to do with what you consider “work”. If you answered email, talked to coworkers about current projects, and handled some things that came up during the day – then you haven’t done things with substance.
You probably avoided doing the larger tasks or projects that really count long term (quadrant II). At some point during the day, you probably noticed something you SHOULD be working on, but didn’t put any time in. Spending time on THOSE things – it doesn’t need to be the whole day – helps you to feel that you accomplished something.

Constantly asking “Am I being productive, or just keeping busy?” will help you from getting caught up in busy work. Write it in a place you will see every day!

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