by Richard Koch
5*/10
Key Ideas:
80% of the results come from 20% of the work.
Stop doing low value activities, start doing high value activities.
You don’t need exact numbers to use the 80/20 principle.
Other interesting notes:
People expect life to be fair and balanced, but it’s not.
20% of your employees are responsible for 80% of your firm’s productivity.
20% of your clients bring 80% of the revenue/profit.
You spend 80% of your socializing time with 20% of your friends.
The Top 10 Low-Level Activities
- Things other people want you to do
- Things that have always been done this way
- Things you’re not particularly good at doing
- Things you don’t enjoy doing
- Things that are always interrupted
- Things few other people are interested in
- Things that have already taken twice as long as you originally expected
- Things where your collaborators are unreliable or low quality
- Things that have a predictable cycle
- Answering the telephone
The Top 10 Highest Value Activities
- Things that advance your purpose in life
- Things you have always wanted to do
- Things already in the 20/80 relationship of time to results
- Innovative ways of doing things that promise to slash the time required and/or multiply the quality of results
- Things other people tell you can’t be done
- Things other people have done successfully in different areas
- Things that use your own creativity
- Things that you can get other people to do for you with relatively little effort on your part
- Anything with high-quality collaborators who have already transcended the 80/20 rule of time, who use time eccentrically and effectively
- Things for which it is now or never
Thoughts on the book:
*Life changing idea, but didn’t need to be a full book.
Longer summary/notes: AH
If you like this, you’ll probably like: 4 Hour work week, The one thing, Essentialism, Tim’s interview with the author, books
Leo :) 