The 80/20 Rule for Life
I talked about the 80/20 rule of software development in an earlier blog. This morning I woke up an hour earlier and started to ponder about how it would apply to my life.
Basically, as I become more productive, clear-minded, and confident throughout last year after joining Benjamin Hardy’s online course, I started on more ambitious and bolder goals, including starting up a 3rd “marketing” company called Idea9 earlier this year.
However, with more work, life gets busy, and frankly the past 3 months I’ve been struggling to maintain work-life balance.
Although things are improving and I’m now more or less adapted to a new schedule, recent feedback from my accountability partners indicated that while I’m probably quite “efficient” now, I’m not quite as “effective”.
I agree and admit that. I’ve gotten less time for learning and reflections, and as a result, life tends to drift into “the busy” and not on route of “the meaningful”.
I know the solution is to carve out some time to ponder and reflect on what’s happening, what needs fixing, and what to do in the future.
This morning I had the lucky opportunity to do such a thing, for one full hour.
The question I asked myself was: “if 80/20 rule is true, what’s the 20%, or even 10% of things that I do now, that’s going to impact my life dramatically in 10 years?” A corollary question is: “what are the 80% or even 90% of things I do now, I can actually eliminate?”
It’s a tough though fun exercise, and I highly recommend it to all you busy people!
If you really start to think hard, you’ll find yourself getting closer to your raw core: your core values, beliefs, and thinking.
For example, one brutal question I asked was: if I can only be left with just one of the three companies I currently have, which one would it be? In other words, which other two babies should I sacrifice, in order to focus on the top 10% tasks, so the ultimate desirable result can happen?
The answer is now clear to me, and I’m also more clear as to where I’d in 10 years, and how my current decisions and actions will help advance my lifetime goals.
For those of you interested, I’d challenge you to do the same.
Take some time this weekend to reflect on what 90% of the things your current actions can be eliminated, so you’ll be at the top of your 10-year goal. Also share your thinking with people your trust, so you can be held accountable and execute.
