Apply this Effective Time Management Technique in Your Life to See More Results

Apply the 80/20 rule

Effective time management is all about getting the most important things done within a certain time period. There is no better way to do this than to apply the 80/20 rule.

Dr Joseph in the late 1940’s suggested the Pareto Principle (the 80/20 rule). This means that only 20% of the tasks we do bring 80% of the value.

This is a vital productivity tool. What this rule means to you is that you should focus on the 20% of the efforts that account for 80% of the outputs. This will dramatically reduce your work time, but at the same time allow you to get more things done. If you keep focusing on the 80% of your efforts which only bring 20% of your results, you are not likely to get most of your things done; or you simply will take a much longer time to complete your tasks.

According to the Pareto Principle on average we work 5 days a week, but in actual fact the total amount of work could be completed within 1 day! This is because the rest of the 4 days we are doing the other 80% of the tasks that bring 20% of value.

Why I’m telling you this is to remind you to give priority to the 20% of the tasks that bring 80% of the value to you! Are you focusing on the 20% of the tasks or 80% of the tasks? The easiest way to know is to have a time-log. A time-log is like a diary but you only need to list down your activities for the day.

With your time-log you can manage to find out where your time goes. After doing this for a week, take a look at your time log, and tick every activity that falls in the 80% of the tasks that bring 20% of the value. Also, list down the 20% of the activities (most productive tasks) which bring 80% of the results.

Now you have a clear overview of what are the most productive tasks. When you have this list of 20% of the tasks, you now can focus on these 20% of the tasks. The other 80% should be completed only AFTER you have completed the 20% of the most productive activities.

The 80/20 rule is an effective time management technique which should be applied in your life because it is the easiest productivity tool to help you get more things done in less time.

I knew about the 80/20 rule when I was young but it never really helped me. This is because knowing is not enough, you must apply what you know. After applying it to my life I manage to achieve so much more. This is such a simple tool that you can use to triple or quadruple your work productivity!

My advice is that you start this moment, take a time-log out or use an online journal to start listing down what you do for the week. Keep track of how you use your time, and then analyze what are the most productive tasks which account for 80% of the outcome. And the last step of course is to focus on the 20% of the task.

Apply this effective time management technique and you will find yourself taking only productive actions, which will indirectly improve and speed up your work.