The 80-20 Principle

The Promise

Twenty percent of your inputs produce eighty percent of your outputs. Find that twenty percent and double down; cut the rest without guilt.

How It Works

• Identify the twenty percent. Trace outcomes back to the inputs that actually produced them. Most of what feels important turns out not to be in the twenty percent.
• Double down on what's leveraged. Concentrated attention on the few inputs that produce results compounds. Spread-thin attention does not.
• Cut or delegate the rest without guilt. The other eighty percent feels like work but produces little, and most cuts are reversible if they turn out to matter.

In Practice

A reader spreading effort evenly across a long list of commitments traces results back to their sources and finds a small handful of inputs account for nearly everything that matters. Doubling down on that handful, and cutting the rest, produces more in a month than the evenly spread effort produced in a quarter.