With full dedication, focus only on 20% of the most key activities from your total to-do list of activities. that you identify through research and achieve around 80% of your life’s targets.
Background of the Discussion:
In the past, during the years of my routine jobs and also while providing consultancy and training, I got the chance to give demonstrations on the 80/20 Rule a number of times. But I provided those trainings for organizational purposes.
In my personal life, I myself have failed a number of times to apply the rule, resulting in poor outcomes, even after hard work.
Well, before writing this article, I was going through the notes that I roughly made on different dates in the process of resolving some of my personal and family issues. Interestingly, I have found that I get stuck many times due to not setting priorities. Actually, I should have made it as per the importance and urgency and also discarded so many things.
There may be so many people like me for whom I have written this article.
The 80/20 Rule: The Game Changer:
It’s your life, and in this life, you cannot take up everything, even though there may be suggestions or pressures. But there are only 24 hours in the day and limited years in your life. It’s the right time to identify those few activities (symbolically 20%) that you are going to do with full focus and dedication. In other words, in the remaining years of your life, you will focus on fulfilling around 80% of your life’s aspirations.
You may be 20 or 60 years old. But, like Vilfredo Pareto’s finding that 80% of the peas from his garden were produced from around 20% of his pea plants, let us also make our individual findings. After understanding the aforesaid, you will make a plan that will be unique because you are unique in this world. Nobody can be identical to you in terms of your body parts, the horizon of your mind, your capability, interests, and ambitions.
In this process of following the 80/20 Rule, to achieve your personal goals of life, from now onwards, let’s say “no” to some of the things that otherwise, earlier, we used to continue getting engaged in.
Let's Try the Following Steps:
Step 1:
Make a to-do list of the tasks. It may take several hours or many days, but make the list complete, as per you.
Step 2:
Add new columns to the list.
On the right side of the list, add the following columns:
- Add new Column 1: “Is the task harmful for society?”? (Drop down the list of “Yes” and “No”).
- Add new Column 2: “The goals that you want to reach at”. (Make a drop-down list of all the goals.)
- Add new Column 3: “How important the task is”. (Make the drop-down list of 1 to 10).
- Add new Column 4: “How urgent the task is”. (Make the drop-down list of 1 to 10).
- Add New Column 5: “How rewarding the task is”. (Make the drop-down list of 1 to 10).
Step 3:
liminate or quarantine some tasks, leaving only the key tasks for action.
Do the following actions:
- If the value of new column 1 is “Yes” for a task, you can straightaway eliminate the task.
- Or, if you are not able to put a value for a task in new Column 2, then eliminate the task.
- If all the values in the new columns 3, 4, and 5 are below 5, then put the task on the quarantine list.
Image taken from Pixabay.
Conclusion:
After completing the aforesaid practices, you will see that around 80% of the activities are off your to-do list. Now, your active To-Do Task List is the concise one that you can focus on and manage to achieve your life’s goals.