(Photo by Badboy69)

“I never have enough time to do everything I want to do!”

Ever hear that before? Everyone has been through that at least one time in their life (usually lots of times)

Time management is one of the trickiest things to deal with in life

The who, what, when, where and why of our daily activities can overbear us and cause us to miss manage our time at work, with family, and with friends, thereby causing conflicts and ultimately conflict in our lives

I just finished rereading “The Four Hour Work Week” By Tim Ferriss and thought I would touch on some of his great time management ideas

In order to be better at time management, you need to be able to accomplish more in less time, and spend less time figuring out if Suzie in cubicle 113A just went to the tanning salon yesterday

There are simple rules that if followed will allow you to accomplish more of the things you need to do, in less time, and give you more time to spend doing the things you really love to do

The 80/20 Rule or the Pareto principle

While this concept is mostly familiar to anyone who remembers taking Algebra, the applications of this concept are endless and widely used among many of the most successfully people in the world

The Pareto principle in its purest form states that, 80% of the outputs come from 20% of the inputs

Some example of this include

80% of the money in the world is owned by 20% of the world population

80% of the consequences come from 20% of the problems

80% of profits in a company come from 20% of company’s products/services

80% of the results come from 20% of the effort and time

This principle can be seen in nearly every aspect of your life, and the application of it can yield amazing results in nearly everything you do

My first understanding of this principle came from a teacher in a class I had early in college

Most professor utilize a class syllabus that includes a breakdown of exactly how your grade is determined, with every test, quiz, and project assigned a weight on its overall impact to your grade in the course

But this professor was different

He had laid out everything that was going to happen in the course, but felt that putting weights on certain items over others deterred from the overall benefits that a student would receive in the course, causing their focus to fall only on the things that mattered

Students were not happy to say the least, college students are used to understand exactly what is expected of them

As he described what we would be doing in the course, he elaborated for an extra amount of time on a final project that he said would, “act as a culmination of everything we have learned in the course” He was very emphatic about how important this project was going to be

I instantly assessed that 80% of my grade was going to be determined by 20% of the work, or in this case this final project

As a result I did not focus as much on the other tests and quizzes that occurred in the course, but put extra effort on the final project

In the end I received an A on the final project, and lower grades in other areas of the course

But my overall grade in the class was an A

As you can see understanding the Pareto principle can have long lasting positive aspects in your life

Consider if you want to lose weight, earn more money, etc

You can understand that 80% of your weight is going to come from 20% of your food sources

This would allow you determine what is causing an increase in weight and eliminate it, resulting in better health and physical appearance

You want to earn more money, so you see that 20% of your earnings are causing 80% of your wealth, so you shift your efforts to where your highest income is coming from and thereby increase your earnings

The possibilities are limitless, but the Pareto principle gets even better when combined with…..

The Parkinson Law

Ever wonder why the vast majority of Americans work a 9-5 work cycle?

It is because it is believed that 8 hours of productivity done in a 40 hour work week can result in massive employee results

The truth of the matter if that most 9-5 office type jobs NEVER involve 8 hours of productive work

Much of the time is wasted writing pointless emails, reading unnecessary memos, re-reviewing analysis reports, and checking Facebook accounts

This is totally understandable as it would be nearly impossible to be 100% productive for 8 straight hours every day, 5 to 6 days a week

But for a few hours per day, how is it that you accomplish all that is necessary for an entire workday, or even a work week?

Parkinson ’s Law states that, a task will increase in perceived importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.

This is why when your boss tells you that you have 48 hours to complete a massive presentation that you are giving to a an important committee in your company, you panic. You scramble to put it together to the best of your ability, and magically you seem to finish it with astounding results an hour before it is due.

It is also true that if I give you 2 months to work on a project, it will quickly become mundane and will likely not become important to you until at least a week or so before its deadline, all the while you are on twitter talking about how exciting it was to drive your car to work that morning

This is Parkinson’s law in action

Now imagine the combined power of both of these concepts

1)      Limit your tasks to only the important to shorten work time (80/20 Rule)

2)      Shorten work time to limit tasks to only the important (Parkinson’s Law)

These two concepts in junction will allow you to focus your efforts only on the activities that are important to you (ie: reading, working out, etc) or your company (make most money, contribute the most), and then schedule them with clear and defined deadlines

You will effectively be getting up to 10x more important things accomplished in a shorter amount of time in your everyday life and in your work life thereby freeing up more time for you to focus on the things you value most in life (love, family, hobbies, passions, etc)

Go out and give it a try

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