Double Your Effectiveness

The key to better personal and business effectiveness is simple. Manage your time and actions by the “80/20 rule.”

If you’re not already doing this, let’s review how it works. 80% of the results you want in life (fame, fortune, love, health, satisfaction, etc.) can be achieved by 20% of all the possible things you could do to accomplish your goal. On the other hand, 80% of the actions you could take will produce only 20% of the results you want.

To manage your time and actions effectively, you need to focus your energy and creativity on doing those 20% of the things that will produce 80% of the results. And it’s easy to do.

First, know what you want. Next, make a list of what you think you need to do to get what you want. The third step is to prioritize that list in order of most important (first) to least important (last). Finally, whenever possible, gear your actions to follow the order of your prioritized list, doing the most important things first and saving the least important things on the list to be done later or, perhaps, not at all.

Since, it’s natural to look for the easy way out, if you ignore the “80/20 rule,” you probably end up doing what’s easiest, less confronting, or whatever takes the least amount of thought, time or energy, rather than doing what’s most important to accomplish your goal. That’s just human nature.

But, mastering the “80/20 rule” can transform energy-wasting inefficiency into results-producing effectiveness. Completing your top priorities first will move you so far so fast, everyone else (or even your own past behavior) will seem like guinea pigs spinning their wheels and getting nowhere.

With commitment and disciplined practice of the “80/20 rule,” you can more than double your effectiveness. You’ll soon be accomplishing twice as much in half the time. This will leave you with enough extra hours to do all those things “busy” people complain about not getting to do – like spending quality time with your family, exercising and/or just plain having more fun.