The 80/20 principle. Beginner's Guide
Today we bring to your attention a translation of the article A Beginner's Guide To The 80/20 Principle about the principle of operation and use of the 80/20 rule, in which we hope readers will find useful tools for managing their performance.
Briefly about 80/20.
“You don't need to do everything. You only need to do what gives the result. ”
You may find this wrong, or take advantage of it. If you are reading this, you are one of those smart people who would rather choose to curb the energy of this rule than fight it.
')
Here you will learn how to optimize everything you do from the very beginning.
How does 80/20 work
In most cases, about 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes. These numbers can change - sometimes it is 70/30 and sometimes 90/10. But whatever the ratio, the point is that a small number of causes have a disproportionately large effect on the result.
In everything, from attracting clients, blog posts, traveling, fitness, relationships - you will find that the 80/20 rule works everywhere.
But let's go back a little. What is this “80/20 rule” and what does it even mean?
The original wording of the rule:
“20% of investments lead to 80% of the result”
The rule comes from Richard Koch’s Rule 80/20. It is a three-dimensional work that definitely deserves to be read.
Curiously, if you open a book of Koch, you will find, on 25 pages, he mentions that you can get the most important information from any book by following the instructions in three steps. As a good student, I followed his instructions — I read the beginning and end of the book, glanced casually at the rest of it, and then read the beginning and the end again. If the author tells how to read books - you should listen!
80/20 Case Study
Expectations are reality. Costs - result
Some practical examples of 80/20
TONGUE
Most languages ​​have about a million words (if not more)
General # words - # words used daily.
Most people use only a few hundred of these words per day.
If you want to learn a language, you do not need to memorize the entire dictionary. You just need to remember the words that are used most often. Their number does not exceed several thousand words.
You can spend the day and night learning Spanish words - minor aspects of biology for the completeness of the language, but this probably will not be of great use to you only if you do not urgently need to talk about mitochondria.
If you do not need to discuss mitochondria, you can learn the basics much faster. This someone like Benny manages to learn a language in 3 months. He does not focus on his possession in perfection, he just focuses on speaking and is not afraid to look silly.
DIET
If you change 20% of your diet, you will see absolutely huge results, especially at first, when you just started to improve your diet. If you follow the Paleootic diet and exclude from the diet of grain and dairy, you do not need to worry about whether or not the use of legumes paleo rule. This may be important, but not so much that it is worth worrying about. The simple solution is to stop eating nonsense and start eating real food. This will bring a much faster result than if you were thinking about whether or not to eat beans.
I have talked about this in several places, but the exclusion of grain and dairy products is 80% of what you need. All that will be after - this is the usual refinement.
If you are upset and do not see the result when it comes to weight loss, stop thinking that you need to completely rebuild everything. Just change a few things that will make a big difference, and use this difference as an impulse to make big changes in the future.
FITNESS
If you want to change your fitness habits, you do not need a complex program. You can make a ton of progress by working with your own weight and sprints. This is what the “ Exercise Without Excuses ” program is based on. You do not need a fancy gym with a personal trainer in order to get in shape. You just need to start, concentrate on doing a few exercises and turn these exercises into a habit.
BUSINESS
Even when I was working at an agency, I was given an installation that I can never lose a client. Whatever happens.
There were no real prerequisites for this conviction. It just looked “bad” to “lose” a client. Even if the customer was crap. And some customers were really shitty! Poorly.
For example, we had a client who paid us almost nothing, but called and complained almost daily. Despite the fact that we doubled their conversion (and income) and halved their expenses, they were still not happy. They did not care about the result, because they wanted control.
Some customers are completely incapable of reasoning.
Note: there is always a customer who pays the least and wants the most from you.
Unfortunately, the desire to “save each client” is a nightmare when working at an agency. But since the entire agency had such a setup, we lost $ 20,000 a month. But the money was not such a big cause for concern (because of the structure of the organization and investors in it), so no one worried about them.
Nevertheless, I am allergic to a poorly functioning business, so I sat down with Excel and, in twenty minutes, laid out how you can sweep away half of our “problem clients” who brought less than $ 1000 a month. I also described how we could double the rate on our customers (who do not have a headache) who loved us and make more money with fewer headaches (no loss among employees), thereby making a profit. I received the answer: “Hmm ... This is interesting,” before I decided to quit. I still do not know what they decided to do with this table.
It works with a ton of other activities. Here are some examples:
-If you blog, you will find that 20% of posts generate 80% of your traffic.
-If you sell something, then you will find that 20% of the goods bring you 80% of the profits.
-If you look at your expenses, you will find that 20% of your accounts make up 80% of your expenses.
80/20, 80/20, 80/20.
Income, earnings and welfare.
Attention! Debaters, go ahead!
Below you can see the “income inequality” chart showing the “estimated” and “ideal” levels for different demographics.
At first glance, the results look terrible. But if you really see what it shows, this is the supreme work of the 80/20 rule. Check for yourself.
The distribution chart of the actual level of well-being in the United States, showing the estimated and ideal distribution among the respondents with different income levels, political and gender affiliation.
WHY YOU REALLY FEEL TO USE 80 \ 20
I was brought up to have hardworking midwestern thinking. Work hard and do not stop until the work is done. Do exactly that every time.
This is great advice. He creates integrity and a sense of pride in his work. This is powerful advice that most people can use in their lives and work.
It can also be a waste of time if you thoughtlessly apply it in all directions and to everything you do.
Here is the truth: you should not be perfect. Your work does not have to be perfect. In fact, it will often not be perfect. So instead of chasing the unachievable standards of excellence, focus on getting a “good enough” result to move on to the next step.
If you are not quite sure how you feel about this, your inner perfectionist probably shouts “foul !!!!”.
I have news for you: You must make it disappear.
He must go, for your good. You must kill him. Bare arms if required. It will not be nice, but it is necessary. He seems harmless, even well-intentioned, but he is holding you back from being as effective as you can be.
USE 80/20 IN ACTION
If you're tired of the theory, here are some practical things you can do to implement 80/20 today.
BUDGET
Look at your budget. Use Mint to analyze your purchases. Which categories cause the most expenses? Find out which of the big expenses can be cut. Choose something like a cable. Turning off the cable will save you about $ 100 a month, probably as much as you would save on something small that you had all this time, such as your daily cup of coffee — and give you time to create something worthwhile. the same time. Double win.
INCOME
Analyze your various sources of income and effort spent on each. There is a chance that you have one milk cow or a larger income stream that takes a minimum of work / is the most fun / is the easiest to do. Get rid of other responsibilities that do not generate the return on investment to the same extent and focus on those flows that give disproportionate results (This is exactly what I did when I refused low-paying client work).
DIET
Do not make a major overhaul of your diet. Do not go to the “Purge” and do not spend hundreds of dollars on the preparation of juice. Just give up cereals and dairy products for four weeks. See what happens.
FITNESS
Do not buy a gym membership. Do not spend three hours a day on the treadmill. Spend 20 minutes a day doing a 4-week program, or an 8-week program with dead weight and sprints. Combine all this with your new diet and see what happens.
TONGUE
Stop trying to memorize vocabulary and learn 200 words in another language. Take a trip to another country for a week and just chat with people. You will see that you have become more fluent in the language these days, unlike your friends, who spend months face in a book.
SITES AND MARKETING
Instead of focusing on every marketing channel you can imagine, look at your statistics for the past 90 days and find out where most of the traffic comes from. Double bid for these traffic sources and forget about all the others. Do this for 90 days and see what happens.
RULES EXCLUSION: WHEN 20% IS NECESSARY
Naturally, the 80/20 rule does not guarantee to work 100% of the time (after all, this is the 80/20 rule)
If you find yourself in any of the following situations, please forget the tips described above:
-You build a rocket.
-You are a surgeon performing an operation on something brain, heart, or other vital organs.
-You are a sign language interpreter at a foreign leader’s funeral. In this case, you should know more than 20% of sign language, unlike this guy:
If one of these situations applies to you, then this is good for you. Otherwise, overpower yourself, focus on 20%, this is important, and make things go as you need.
Editor - Alexander Protsyuk .
Thank you for your attention and for the positive feedback. Subscribe to our blog on Habré , Twitter , Facebook , Google+ , VK , YouTube channel to follow updates from Silicon Valley. Previous posts can be found here .
Briefly about 80/20.
“You don't need to do everything. You only need to do what gives the result. ”
You may find this wrong, or take advantage of it. If you are reading this, you are one of those smart people who would rather choose to curb the energy of this rule than fight it.
')
Here you will learn how to optimize everything you do from the very beginning.
How does 80/20 work
In most cases, about 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes. These numbers can change - sometimes it is 70/30 and sometimes 90/10. But whatever the ratio, the point is that a small number of causes have a disproportionately large effect on the result.
In everything, from attracting clients, blog posts, traveling, fitness, relationships - you will find that the 80/20 rule works everywhere.
But let's go back a little. What is this “80/20 rule” and what does it even mean?
The original wording of the rule:
“20% of investments lead to 80% of the result”
The rule comes from Richard Koch’s Rule 80/20. It is a three-dimensional work that definitely deserves to be read.
Curiously, if you open a book of Koch, you will find, on 25 pages, he mentions that you can get the most important information from any book by following the instructions in three steps. As a good student, I followed his instructions — I read the beginning and end of the book, glanced casually at the rest of it, and then read the beginning and the end again. If the author tells how to read books - you should listen!
80/20 Case Study
Expectations are reality. Costs - result
Some practical examples of 80/20
TONGUE
Most languages ​​have about a million words (if not more)
General # words - # words used daily.
Most people use only a few hundred of these words per day.
If you want to learn a language, you do not need to memorize the entire dictionary. You just need to remember the words that are used most often. Their number does not exceed several thousand words.
You can spend the day and night learning Spanish words - minor aspects of biology for the completeness of the language, but this probably will not be of great use to you only if you do not urgently need to talk about mitochondria.
If you do not need to discuss mitochondria, you can learn the basics much faster. This someone like Benny manages to learn a language in 3 months. He does not focus on his possession in perfection, he just focuses on speaking and is not afraid to look silly.
DIET
If you change 20% of your diet, you will see absolutely huge results, especially at first, when you just started to improve your diet. If you follow the Paleootic diet and exclude from the diet of grain and dairy, you do not need to worry about whether or not the use of legumes paleo rule. This may be important, but not so much that it is worth worrying about. The simple solution is to stop eating nonsense and start eating real food. This will bring a much faster result than if you were thinking about whether or not to eat beans.
I have talked about this in several places, but the exclusion of grain and dairy products is 80% of what you need. All that will be after - this is the usual refinement.
If you are upset and do not see the result when it comes to weight loss, stop thinking that you need to completely rebuild everything. Just change a few things that will make a big difference, and use this difference as an impulse to make big changes in the future.
FITNESS
If you want to change your fitness habits, you do not need a complex program. You can make a ton of progress by working with your own weight and sprints. This is what the “ Exercise Without Excuses ” program is based on. You do not need a fancy gym with a personal trainer in order to get in shape. You just need to start, concentrate on doing a few exercises and turn these exercises into a habit.
BUSINESS
Even when I was working at an agency, I was given an installation that I can never lose a client. Whatever happens.
There were no real prerequisites for this conviction. It just looked “bad” to “lose” a client. Even if the customer was crap. And some customers were really shitty! Poorly.
For example, we had a client who paid us almost nothing, but called and complained almost daily. Despite the fact that we doubled their conversion (and income) and halved their expenses, they were still not happy. They did not care about the result, because they wanted control.
Some customers are completely incapable of reasoning.
Note: there is always a customer who pays the least and wants the most from you.
Unfortunately, the desire to “save each client” is a nightmare when working at an agency. But since the entire agency had such a setup, we lost $ 20,000 a month. But the money was not such a big cause for concern (because of the structure of the organization and investors in it), so no one worried about them.
Nevertheless, I am allergic to a poorly functioning business, so I sat down with Excel and, in twenty minutes, laid out how you can sweep away half of our “problem clients” who brought less than $ 1000 a month. I also described how we could double the rate on our customers (who do not have a headache) who loved us and make more money with fewer headaches (no loss among employees), thereby making a profit. I received the answer: “Hmm ... This is interesting,” before I decided to quit. I still do not know what they decided to do with this table.
It works with a ton of other activities. Here are some examples:
-If you blog, you will find that 20% of posts generate 80% of your traffic.
-If you sell something, then you will find that 20% of the goods bring you 80% of the profits.
-If you look at your expenses, you will find that 20% of your accounts make up 80% of your expenses.
80/20, 80/20, 80/20.
Income, earnings and welfare.
Attention! Debaters, go ahead!
Below you can see the “income inequality” chart showing the “estimated” and “ideal” levels for different demographics.
At first glance, the results look terrible. But if you really see what it shows, this is the supreme work of the 80/20 rule. Check for yourself.
The distribution chart of the actual level of well-being in the United States, showing the estimated and ideal distribution among the respondents with different income levels, political and gender affiliation.
WHY YOU REALLY FEEL TO USE 80 \ 20
I was brought up to have hardworking midwestern thinking. Work hard and do not stop until the work is done. Do exactly that every time.
This is great advice. He creates integrity and a sense of pride in his work. This is powerful advice that most people can use in their lives and work.
It can also be a waste of time if you thoughtlessly apply it in all directions and to everything you do.
Here is the truth: you should not be perfect. Your work does not have to be perfect. In fact, it will often not be perfect. So instead of chasing the unachievable standards of excellence, focus on getting a “good enough” result to move on to the next step.
If you are not quite sure how you feel about this, your inner perfectionist probably shouts “foul !!!!”.
I have news for you: You must make it disappear.
He must go, for your good. You must kill him. Bare arms if required. It will not be nice, but it is necessary. He seems harmless, even well-intentioned, but he is holding you back from being as effective as you can be.
USE 80/20 IN ACTION
If you're tired of the theory, here are some practical things you can do to implement 80/20 today.
BUDGET
Look at your budget. Use Mint to analyze your purchases. Which categories cause the most expenses? Find out which of the big expenses can be cut. Choose something like a cable. Turning off the cable will save you about $ 100 a month, probably as much as you would save on something small that you had all this time, such as your daily cup of coffee — and give you time to create something worthwhile. the same time. Double win.
INCOME
Analyze your various sources of income and effort spent on each. There is a chance that you have one milk cow or a larger income stream that takes a minimum of work / is the most fun / is the easiest to do. Get rid of other responsibilities that do not generate the return on investment to the same extent and focus on those flows that give disproportionate results (This is exactly what I did when I refused low-paying client work).
DIET
Do not make a major overhaul of your diet. Do not go to the “Purge” and do not spend hundreds of dollars on the preparation of juice. Just give up cereals and dairy products for four weeks. See what happens.
FITNESS
Do not buy a gym membership. Do not spend three hours a day on the treadmill. Spend 20 minutes a day doing a 4-week program, or an 8-week program with dead weight and sprints. Combine all this with your new diet and see what happens.
TONGUE
Stop trying to memorize vocabulary and learn 200 words in another language. Take a trip to another country for a week and just chat with people. You will see that you have become more fluent in the language these days, unlike your friends, who spend months face in a book.
SITES AND MARKETING
Instead of focusing on every marketing channel you can imagine, look at your statistics for the past 90 days and find out where most of the traffic comes from. Double bid for these traffic sources and forget about all the others. Do this for 90 days and see what happens.
RULES EXCLUSION: WHEN 20% IS NECESSARY
Naturally, the 80/20 rule does not guarantee to work 100% of the time (after all, this is the 80/20 rule)
If you find yourself in any of the following situations, please forget the tips described above:
-You build a rocket.
-You are a surgeon performing an operation on something brain, heart, or other vital organs.
-You are a sign language interpreter at a foreign leader’s funeral. In this case, you should know more than 20% of sign language, unlike this guy:
If one of these situations applies to you, then this is good for you. Otherwise, overpower yourself, focus on 20%, this is important, and make things go as you need.
Editor - Alexander Protsyuk .
Thank you for your attention and for the positive feedback. Subscribe to our blog on Habré , Twitter , Facebook , Google+ , VK , YouTube channel to follow updates from Silicon Valley. Previous posts can be found here .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/219185/
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