Definitely can't argue with the logic of what you point out – it's a
constant struggle I have myself, wondering if what I am doing is efficient
or if I should be expending energy working in a different direction =)

But it can be used as something to seek for. Imagine that you use the Pareto principle as a goal as well as a measurement tool. You *want* 20% of your input to produce 80% of your output. You want one customer out of five to pay you 80% of your wage working one full day a week. Often, making these adjustments isn't as hard as you'd first think.

If you keep following this, you'd end up incredibly efficient and very broke. So make sure to find other sources of income as you go along. After all, the automated income is the most efficient one.

I would suggest however, that if you were able to find the best info in the first 20% of the work, you likely would be able to apply the principle. Problem is with research until you have more to compare to and understand, that other 80% of context is needed to recognize it.

I work part-time as a researcher. The company is BIG into the 80/20 principle. For me, it just doesn't work. If I am researching a topic, I usually find that golden piece of information in the last 20% of my work. I think that my seniors frown somewhat on my style, but for me I simply can't produce something where I doubt that I have the full story.

Juliet

I agree that often the rule is held – I think the point Ali is making here,
quite validly, is that the more efficient we are the less likely it is the
80/20 rule holds true. For individuals, we may be searching for a mythical
20% that just isn't there.

Perhaps in larger groups, it is more pronounced also because individual
differences and abilities are so large. I have read many times that the
best software developers outperform their counterparts 10:1 or even 100:1.
This seems remarkable, but I can remember working in college in groups as
well as on software teams where I, one person was responsible for basically
all the work that was completed.

You make very valid points, and I think your presence here certainly adds to
the discussion! I don't have experience with MLM, but intuitively I am
surprised the 80/20 rule does not hold – I know many people on the lower
levels don't always make a profit, and a few that work very very very hard
seem to reap a large portion of the rewards. Perhaps that is just what I've
seen however, and as you point out, may not be supported by the data.

Next when I was in sales for what became a very large software company the 80/20 played out in the sales organization as well; particularly as it grew. Twenty percent of the the people brought in 80% of the business. Which was pretty shocking when you think about it.

Now I am involved with a leading direct sales company in the personal development industry. One of the reasons I decided to move forward was seeing the 80/20 play out here as well. Twenty percent of the people make 80% of the sales. To me it helped validate it as a viable opportunity. But since the commission structure is not multi-level marketing (MLM) that may play a part as well.

What did surprise me though was looking at other MLM “business opportunity” income disclosure statements. They are often hard to find but the 80/20 is NOT common at all in the ones I have reviewed.

Based on my own experiences, I believe someone should ask a lot more questions if they don't see 80/20 rule playing out. Not to say it's always true; but look for why it not. There may be something there that warrants further investigation.

I found this self analysis to be very interesting because we all know how much the 80/20 rule has been hyper-marketed these days. You've taken this principle and truly tried it on your own to see if it applied to you or not. And it didn't.

You just inspired me to think about whether the 80/20 rule applies to my life or not. Thanks for the inspiration!

The way I understand it, the 80/20 rule is a means of prioritizing. The principle behind it is that all activities are not equally valuable and if you chart your activities, a smaller number will be more valuable. And that what establishes greater value of an activity is its long-term benefit.

In terms of your freelance writing, we might state that the most valuable activity would be: to get paid the most amount of money for the shortest period of time with the greatest residual income. I did a quick chart of these three variables relating to your freelance business. After looking at the numbers, I simplified the activities into blogging and magazine article writing because the magazine article was the only variable. In terms of time, money and residual income all of the blog articles prioritize the same.

The magazine article is in the middle of your income, at the bottom of your 'time spent', but it is at the top your residual income. The reason it is at the top is that one published article gains you credibility and notoriety which exponentially increase your clientele and income per article. So all that time writing queries is actually worth thousands of dollars more than any single article you could write.

If you spent the majority of your time querying magazines instead of writing you would starve to death. But the effort you put into getting published increases the value of your writing over-all. It is this basic dynamic that the 80/20 rule points out.

But, then, most of us do not give it this much consideration. I hadn't until I read your article. ;)

I've never taken the figures terribly seriously.

I rely on a different principle: work smarter, not harder.

I am a believer of 80/20 rule but not to a extreme level. I do agree with you that the pareto principle can't be applied to everything that we do. But it does a good work in helping us to do more valuable task . Thanks for sharing.

Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger

I think the Pareto Principle is a just a good idea taken too far. And it should only apply to the macro level rather than the micro level. Great way to put it all together Ali!

Cheers,
Jeremy

I generally go with my gut when it comes to getting rid of clients. I can usually pretty quickly determine if a client is going to be a worthwhile recourse of income or just a waste of time. The 80/20 rule just tries to make this principle more concrete. But like you said, this can't be applied to everything, all the time. Eric.