Pareto's 80 - 20 Principle - A Slight Twist

One of the things I love about being a circle facilitator is that, in order to be effective, I have to walk my talk, and do the exercises first myself. So this month this means that I’m reflecting on:

What I have to celebrate from the year,

Where I can grow/have grown,

What I can let go of, and,

What I can embrace in 2022.

I wanted to share one thing I’m celebrating, hoping it’s meaningful and maybe helpful to you too, during what can be a very overwhelming time of year even without the Pandemic.

I’m celebrating that I’ve actually used the Pareto principle of 80-20 (80% of results come from 20% of the action) throughout this year. What I’ve gained as a result is more joy day to day, more capacity for doing things and better results overall along the way.

The slight twist that has made the principle useful for me is to simply reverse the emphasis, putting the emphasis on the 20 rather than the 80 – and asking myself, “What’s the 20 percent here?”

I ask myself this, as I did just this morning, when I’m starting to feel overwhelmed about what I’m facing, when I’m starting to go down a thought spiral of non-possibility and negativity.

One answer I might come up with is, “The 20 percent is the 25 minutes I can devote to this task”, rather than the 90 minutes or more I wish I could. Then I block out the time and dive in fully focused and present, even setting a timer for 25 minutes to help me. Much of the time, I actually relish the challenge of seeing what I can create or do in that timeframe. Dare I say, it’s even fun…

I’ve also brought the idea into my one-one coaching work with clients, with excellent results.

I've shared just one example here. I'm wondering, how have you used this principle or how might you? Maybe it’s something you’d like to embrace for 2022?

I'd love to hear what you think about this idea!  Do share in the comments below if you like.

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash