Life Dynamics

Applying the 80-20 Law

Why this tactic matters
Does success stem from responding to the hundreds of issues facing you, each competing for your personal attention? Or does the “Pareto Principle” – that 80% of your achievements result from 20% of your efforts - apply? Tactically you may gain most leverage from concentrating your energies on those few tasks where you can make an exceptional impact, deploying your strengths to achieve excellence. Applying the 80-20 Law requires you to identify your key objectives and then focus your time and effort around them and ignore everything else.

Becoming caught up in competing priorities, attempting too many different things and finding it difficult to make a sustained impact		Clarity of key objectives, ruthless in time management, and concentrating energies around only the activities that make a difference

The compass and the clock Bonaparte’s law: “space we can recover, time never” Don’t spread yourself too thin Know what you should do, not what others think you should do Run your gains and cut your losses Bet on the odds of success Do the natural thing: play to your strengths Make Parkinson’s Law work in reverse Keep alert to organisational change Manage your stakeholders proactively Manage upwards Manage the opportunities and risks of different meetings Don’t worry about being left out Let others do the work for you; you can’t do it all by yourself Avoid time wasters Lottery winners and accident victims Do what’s important but no one else is doing		Manage the “air traffic control system” of life” Rarely do things go in a straight line Don’t confuse means and ends Ready, aim and fire Take time out to see the big picture Life is what’s happening while we’re busy making plans Enlightened trial and error outperforms the planning of flawless intellects Others don’t share your priorities Manage your “boss” Rewrite your job description to stretch your responsibilities Recognise and reward the talented Move on the “mad, bad and sad” Manage high impact meetings Know what to do next

Parkinson’s Law and the Royal Navy
C. Northcote Parkinson, the British historian, was interested in the odd fact that even though the British navy was in decline, as an administrative bureaucracy it was still expanding in complexity and staff. The number of ships and the number of officers and men was decreasing in the Royal Navy. But the number of dockyard workers and officials, and the number of admiralty officials, was increasing, and sometimes increasing dramatically. For some reason the work was increasing so much that, as far as admiralty officials went, it was necessary to increase that staff by as much as 78%. “There need be little relationship between the work to be done and the size of staff to which it may be assigned.” Hence Parkinson’s Law: “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

Activity generates activity, and more activity escalates into more activity, activity that loses sight of the point: results. Inputs become more important than outcomes.

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