What Is the Pareto Principle, and How Can It Boost Your Time Management?

The Pareto Principle of Time Management can revolutionize your efficiency and help you get the majority of your work done in a fraction of the time. Learn what it is and how you can incorporate it into your time management system.

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13 mins read

How much time do you spend at work each day? 8 hours? 10?

What if I told you that in just a fifth of that time, you could get as much work done as you would in a full workday? Sounds impossible, doesn't it?

Well, the Pareto Principle begs to differ.

The Pareto Principle is a tried-and-true natural law phenomenon that shows up in everything from manufacturing to economics. In this article, we’ll discuss what it is, its relationship with time management, and how you can use it as a technique to boost your time management game.

What Is the Pareto Principle?

The Pareto Principle states that roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes in many circumstances. Or put another way, approximately 80% of results come from 20% of the efforts (things people do).

Don’t get too hung up on these numbers, though.

Despite using words like “principle” and “law,” the Pareto Principle is not a hard and fast mathematical rule. Neither does it mean that situations in which it applies will demonstrate that exact ratio. Rather, it is simply an observation that there is an unequal distribution between inputs and outputs.

This observation has been made in several industries and areas of life, including economics, computing, manufacturing, sales, business management, problem-solving, personal relationships, and time management. Along the way, it’s picked up many names, including the Pareto Rule, the 80/20 Rule, the Principle of Factor Sparsity, as well as the Law of the Vital Few.

However, the importance is the same irrespective of the name it goes by. There is an inequality between input and output, and if you want to be more productive, you must find and focus on those high-value inputs that bring the highest output.

Where Does the Pareto Principle Come From?

The Pareto Principle was first discovered by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto while gardening. He realized that 20% of the peas he grew were responsible for 80% of his total yield, which got him thinking. Once he started looking, he began discovering variations of this ratio throughout the physical world. He then applied the principle to macroeconomics to develop the 80/20 rule. This rule explained that both in Italy and abroad, 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the population.

However, it was not until the 1940s that the Pareto Principle as we know it was born. Dr. Joseph Juran, a prominent figure in engineering, took Vilfredo’s 80/20 rule, applied it to operations management, and renamed it the Pareto Principle.

From there, the principle took off and has since become something akin to natural law, applied in diverse areas, from manufacturing to time management.

Pareto Principle Examples: Where Does the Pareto Principle Apply?

As we mentioned earlier, the Pareto Principle exists in several areas of life and across many industries. You may have seen it in practical action yourself. Some examples of the principle in action include:

Sales: In sales, it is common knowledge that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customer base.
Business Management: In a team of a hundred people, only 20 might be responsible for 80% of the results.
Stress: The next time you feel stressed, analyze the cause. You’ll likely find that only a few items on your to-do list are causing you the biggest worry.
Pollution: While we all contribute to carbon emissions, a few companies and industries generate the bulk of it.
Research: Usually, 80% of the information you will use in your research paper will come from 20% of the materials you gather.

The list goes on…

What Is the Pareto Principle of Time Management?

Time management is the process of organizing your time for maximum productivity, and the Pareto Principle states that 80% of outputs result from 20% of inputs. Combine the two, and you have the Pareto Principle of Time Management, which states that 80% of your productivity occurs or emanates from 20% of your time or tasks.

This means that there is an uneven distribution of the tasks you do each day and the time in which you do them. 20% of your tasks contribute 80% to the final results, and you get 80% of tasks done in 20% of your workday.

How to Use the Pareto Principle for Time Management

In addition to being a natural law, the Pareto Principle is also a time management technique. Therefore, you can apply it to develop and execute your time management skills. Yet you may be wondering, what is the Pareto Principle good for and how can I apply it to my life?

Some of the main areas where the technique really shines include prioritization, scheduling, delegation, goal setting, and helping you avoid distractions.

The Pareto Principle and Prioritization

We humans are innately bad at prioritization. Due to a psychological quirk called the mere urgency effect, we tend to choose urgent or easy tasks over important ones, even where the latter is obviously more important. So, it's no wonder we spend 80% of our time doing busy work.

Luckily for you, the Pareto Principle is uniquely suited to solving that problem. It can help you distinguish between high and low-value tasks and thereby prioritize the ones that advance your long-term goals.

It does this by helping you see the big picture instead of just focusing on the next thing on your to-do list. By asking yourself whether a task falls within your 20%, you force yourself to think about the long-term impact it will have on your goals, not just the urgency it presents.

At the end of the day, you may discover that many of your tasks are less important than you once thought. That realization will help you accurately prioritize your tasks to satisfy your immediate responsibilities and long-term goals.

The Pareto Principle and Scheduling

There’s nothing more frustrating than sitting down to work and then spending hours staring at a blank screen. However, those creative slumps are a part of life; at such times, you would be better off doing mundane tasks requiring little or no brain power. The Pareto Principle can help you plan your schedule accordingly.

First, you must understand that human bodies are not constant. We all have natural rhythms, with recurring cycles of work and rest. These are called ultradian performance rhythms, and they are why you feel quicker, more energetic, and more creative at certain times over others.

In addition, we all have optimal productivity periods during which we work better, faster, and smarter. This time differs with each person, and while yours may be early in the morning when you are energetic and refreshed, other people may prefer working late at night when they can think without interruptions.

The Pareto Principle can help you use these cycles to craft a schedule that maximizes your productivity. Once you know your prime time, you can schedule high-priority 20% tasks within them and repetitive, mundane tasks for periods when your creative juices are tapped out, or you run out of steam.

The Pareto Principle and Delegation

Once you’ve determined your priorities with the Pareto Principle (the Eisenhower Method helps here too), it is much easier to let go of tasks and assign them to others. But that’s not all; the Pareto Principle can also help you delegate better.

Instead of randomly assigning tasks to your teammates, you can use the Pareto Principle to identify your team competencies. That way, you can delegate efficiently and improve productivity.

You can start by assigning the same task to all your team members and monitoring their performance. Over time you will be able to identify the 20% driving the most output, and you can then delegate those tasks exclusively to them.

The Pareto Principle and Goal Setting

Goals are necessary for success, but if you have too many, you’ll burnout in no time. Also, spreading yourself too thin is a surefire way to work hard and achieve nothing.

Instead of wearing yourself out with too many goals, you can use the Pareto Principle to develop a laser-like focus on a few important goals. Here’s how: write down ten goals. Then pick the two most important. These are your 20%, and they should take priority over the rest of your goals.

The Pareto Principle and Avoiding Distractions

You can also use the Pareto Principle to identify and avoid your biggest time wasters. Instead of making a huge change all at once, you can use the principle to make gradual changes and improve your productivity.

To get started, list all the things you do during work hours that distract you and identify the 20% that sucks up most of your time. Apply yourself to eliminating those distractions when you work, and when you succeed, repeat the process all over again.

How to Identify Your 20%

Success with the Pareto Time Management Principle turns on your ability to accurately identify that 20% of input that brings 80% of output. In some cases, that 20% is obvious, but the distinction is not so clear in others.

If you’re having trouble identifying your 20%, asking yourself these questions might help clear things up.

Does this task bring in the most rewards?
Am I passionate about this task?
Am I good at this task?
Does this task advance my long-term goals?
Do these people contribute to my project's success?

Time Management Tactics to Help You Keep to the Pareto Principle

Staying focused on the Pareto Principle of Time Management is a learned skill. It won’t be easy, no thanks to the mere urgency effect. But here are a few tactics you can use to help you stick to it.

Track Your Time

How can you know which tasks suck up your time without equivalent rewards if you don't track your time? Get a timer, a log book, or a time tracker to record how much time you spend and what you spend it on.

Before long, you’ll have a clear picture of your time management status, and you’ll be able to apply the Pareto Principle to correct any imbalances.

Do Important Tasks First

Don’t give procrastination a chance to set in. Do your most important tasks first.

You are usually most alert in the morning, and doing the hardest task first makes everything easier in comparison.

Practice Timeboxing

Timeboxing is another time management technique you should incorporate into your time management system. You do it by creating a block of time in your calendar during which you will work on a task. You can use timeboxing to plan for the 20% of the time when you will do the most work.

Remove All Distractions

Colleagues, meetings, notifications, and emails. All these things can eat into your prime time and affect your productivity. Avoid this by eliminating all distractions around you. If you need to, put your phone away and consider using tools like noise-canceling headphones or website blockers to maintain focus.

Set clear boundaries during your most productive hours, letting others know when you are unavailable. This creates a dedicated space for deep work, allowing you to channel your energy into the tasks that bring the highest returns.