80/20

[Sean Adams]

I am sure you have heard of the "80/20 Rule" - if you haven't, in a nutshell it says that 20% of your effort will give you 80% of your productivity.

It is very important that you strive to focus your time, energy and effort on those top 20% of what is important.

Focus is a very tricky thing. We live in a fast-paced world and it is not easy to close out distractions and focus your attention on something entirely - even for a brief period of time.

But I can tell you that if you can master the skill of focus you will see that you actually have less to do than you think. You are more capable of seeing things all the way through and because of this, there are fewer lingering things remaining on that never-ending "to-do" list we all have.

In many ways focus comes down to time management. I have never forgotten the old saying I heard a long time ago....

"There are 24 hours in a day. You have 24 hours in your day just like Hellen Keller did, John Kennedy did, and any other great and successful person in history has had."

If you stop for 2 minutes and think, I mean really concentrate on how you spend your time you will be shocked at how much time is wasted on things that are not productive in any sort of way.

I am not saying you should not live your life - having fun is part of life. I am referring to the mindless time wasters we all let creep into our days....

Focus, Focus, Focus.... all the great ones have learned how to do this successfully and that explains why they achieve what they achieve.

[americanlawn]

Not really sure what you mean, but I feel bad for lawn customers who NEVER call foir a free service call -- even when their lawn has many weeds. Converserly, some customers call when they see 5 or 6 weeds in their entire lawn. To me, the 80/20 rule would be: 20% of customers call when a few 'new' weeds routinely pop up, and 80% of customers never complain when they really should be asking for help (free service call)....Those are the one's I feel bad about.

[Marcos]

I know precisely what Sean's talking about.

The 80/20 rule is key in developing key leadership skills in the minds of all business people, especially those who have any plans at all in the future of delegating key portions of their operations over to foremen, or office personnel that they've come to trust and mutually rely upon.

I've seen so many examples through the years of small businessmen, of VARIOUS fields, who simply couldn't get their OWN hands off of their work, and literally 'relax' in their minds enough to pass the baton of responsibility along to someone who they (could have) trained to take some of the weight off their shoulders.
Frankly, some of these gentlemen I'm talking about...end up working themselves into the grave, unneccessarily, and often quite prematurely.

Sometimes a business owner can also develop into what is known as a true 'workaholic', who often burns endless hours working...so that he/she can avoid thinking about certain stress factors in their lives ....past or present.
They often work just for the sake of working...despite what their family demands of them at home.