80/20 Principle

This is one of the most interesting things I've even learned from a book (The 4-Hour Work Week). The 80/20 principle, also known as Pareto's Law, basically states that you get 80% of your results from 20% of your work.
Pareto was an Italian economist, but what's cool (and useful) is that you can apply 80/20 to practically anything. The reason I'm writing this is because of a score I received on my last comp paper. I scored 115/125 which is 92%. Pretty darn good, especially considering I didn't fully read any of the literary topics I discussed. I wrote my rough draft in about two hours, and it was awful. The thesis didn't make sense with what I wrote about. I revised it to make sense the day (more like the night) before it was due, about another 2 hours of work. Not counting goof off time, I spent about 4 hours total, with only mild interest in the subject and somehow pulled off an A.

Now this teacher isn't an easy grader, though I feel she is fair, and English papers are certainly not my forte. I think it's a good example of the 80/20 rule at work. Instead of submitting my 4 hours of work for something that's 92% correct, I could have put forth twice as much time and effort on the paper to get it 99% correct. I don't know about you, but to me that last 7% is definitely NOT worth an additional 4 hours of my time. Looking at it mathematically it's not worth an additional 1 hour. Maybe it's just because I'm a type B person, but I say screw those last few percents.

The same thing applies to social situations. I'm sort of paraphrasing from the book now, off the top of my head that is. If you know 20 people chances are you get most of your social gratification from only 4 of them. That's not to say the other 80% are worthless people you should never talk to, but they generally do not please you as much as the top 20%. Conversely, 80% of your problems and negative social feelings probably stem from the 4 most negative people, the bottom 20%. So by dealing with those 4 people, you can eliminate 80% of your problems. The remaining 20% of your problems would take an exorbitant amount of effort to clear up and would probably result in more stress in the long run. Besides, life would be boring if it didn't have little problems for us to joke about later.

See what else you can apply 80/20 to. It's a great way to prioritize everything and deal with time management.