Vilfredo Pareto saved my Sanity

Who exactly is Vilfredo Pareto and why in the world am I writing about him? After all, the dude’s been dead for almost 100 years.

It’s because he came up with a principle called Pareto’s Principle that specifies an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs. The principle states that, for many phenomena, 20% of invested input is responsible for 80% of the results obtained. To simplify things, it means that most of your effort will be wasted. You just have to figure out what work will give you the results that you want the part. Easier said than done.

I first heard about Pareto’s Principle while reading the 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. If you’ve yet to read it, I highly recommend it. You’ll be mind blown.

So how can you use Pareto’s Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, in your life?

It means that:

• You live in 20% of your house 80% of the time.
• You cook 20% of the meals in your cook book 80% of the time.
• You wear 20% of the clothes in your drawers 80% of the time.
• You use 20% of your car’s space 80% of the time.
• 80% of your productivity happens in 20% of the time you spend at work.
• You gain 80% of your profits from 20% of the stocks in your portfolio.
• A business will gain 80% of it’s profits from selling 20% of their styles.
• 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your accounts with your business.
• 80% of the things you remember will come from 20% of the classes you took.

The percentages won’t be perfectly 80-20 each time but you can count on the fact that they will be disproportionate.

You can use this principle in every aspect of your life to become more productive, less frustrated, and more focused on what matters the most.

No more burning the midnight oil to make you look busy and think that you’re being productive.

I decided to dissect the statistics of my blog to become more efficient in this area of my life. I wanted to cut all the fluff to focus on what was the most crucial to reach certain goals that I’ve set.

Here’s what I found out:

• 4% of my blog posts accounted for 38% of my views. Clearly, quality is more important than quantity. I’ll tend to only post once a week on Wednesdays from now on unless there is a pertinent topic that needs to be published right away.
• 3 sources accounted for 85% of my traffic. Some places have more influence than others. I need to focus on these.
• The Inspiration series and Being More Grateful Series accounted for only 2% of views. You guys aren’t really interested in what inspires me or what makes me more grateful so I’ll stop talking about that.
• The 180k Word Challenge was not a very popular idea as it got less than 0.5% of my total views. It forced me to create work for work’s sake. It made me write even if it was shit….even if I knew that the topic I was writing about probably would never be posted. Talk about being inefficient! (If you’re really wondering, I’m up to over 15,000 words in 22 days.) I’ve written a lot of words but most posts are either incomplete or way too wordy just so I can accomplish some bullshit goal I made up for myself. I’ll no longer be pursuing this goal. Sometimes what you don’t do is more important than what you do.
• You guys aren’t really interested in interviews as this post received less than 1% of total views so those will no longer occur or at least be suspended for the time-being.
• I no longer have a goal of quitting my job by the end of the year to become a writer. I literally can write each and every day; that’s no problem. But that doesn’t mean that it’s all quality and publishable. I’d also just be trading one boss for another; one set of bullshit rules for another. I’d still be limited with what I can and can’t do and when and how I’d have to do it. No thanks.
• Posts where I rant are most popular. I get more emotional when I write these kinds of posts and I think you can see it in my words. If I can get a reaction out of you and/or got you thinking, then that post did it’s job. These are the types of posts that I’ll put most of my efforts into.

By cutting back on how often I post, I hope to increase the quality of my posts instead of simply trying to stick to a set deadline each and every week for who knows what reason.

It’ll also give me more time to plan and make my escape from the Financial Industry which is one of my main goals in life right now.

The sooner I can do that, the sooner I’ll be happy with every aspect of my life and the happier my wife and family will be and the better quality my posts will be.

I’m excited for things to come.

I hope you are too.

Keep on pursuing your dreams and don’t be afraid to switch things up from time to time.

We’ll all get there some day soon as long as we put in the work.