Most people feel ‘time-poor’ — too many things to do and not enough time. When it comes to time management, you want a simple formula to prioritize your time.
Join the DZone community and get the full member experience. Most people feel ‘ time-poor ‘ — too many things to do and not enough time to do them. When it comes to time management, you want a simple formula to help you determine where you should be prioritizing your time. In this article, learn how to use the Pareto Principle as a framework for priority management to help you focus on the tasks and habits that make the most significant contribution to your personal and professional well-being. The Pareto Principle, also called the 80/20 rule, argues that 80% of results come from 20% of the effort. Economist Vilfredo Pareto first introduced the concept in the 1900s when he found that 80% of Italy’s wealth was concentrated among 20% of the population. Since then, his principle has been used to show trends in everything from the world’s richest nations to open-source software activity. You can see the 80/20 principle take shape in other industries as well. In the automotive industry, Toyota wanted to establish the life cycle of a car’s carbon emissions and discovered 20% of a car’s carbon footprint came from its manufacture, and 80% from its use. During the typical workday, there are always more things you could be doing: meetings to attend, tasks to cross off your list, emails to respond to. But you can’t tackle everything. When you apply the Pareto Principle to priority management, you commit to focusing on the highest-priority areas above all else. The goal behind this practice is to help you improve both your time management and project management because you’ll be able to focus on the work that produces the highest yield, and deprioritize the stuff that matters less. Here are three simple steps to help you get started on applying the Pareto Principle for your priorities: In order to devote more time to your priorities, you first need to determine what they are. A good practice for identifying priorities is to consider what are the most important things you want to accomplish over the next few months. Your priorities should align with your long-term goals — your personal North Star — so you’re confident you’re moving in the right direction. Priorities are more useful when they’re in the ‘Goldilocks zone’— they shouldn’t be so small that they’re just tasks (e.g., write that strategy doc), and they shouldn’t be so large that they don’t have any concrete meaning or deliverables (e.g., build a great product). If you need help identifying your priorities, there are some techniques you can try. David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system is a productivity method that begins by recording everything that’s pulling your attention — a master list filled with all projects, tasks, and to-dos. If you’re like most people, you’ll likely end up with a long list. From there, you can use a prioritization technique like the Eisenhower Matrix to identify activities you should prioritize, delegate, or stop altogether. Make Time has also developed a planning system called One Big Thing where you essentially single-task your entire day around the one big thing you’d like to accomplish vs.
