80:20 - A Rule Which May Help to Improve Life

Hi,

Hope you all are doing great.

This time it is something new which may interest you.

Some time back I went through a nice article, and found it really interesting.

It is called as 80:20 rule and defined also as Pareto principle,

The Rule Says That: roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes

Above rule is used vastly in every part of world, it can be business, economy and many more place, you can go for following link for basic details on the rule.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

Now I was wondering can we use this concept in our life.

I found it much interesting and something which should be there in every once life.

While actual 80/20 rules they called it as a standard or obvious fact and most probably uncontrollable when it comes to materialized world.

But when I have thought for a while about rule, I found that this rule is not same when it comes to our life, as we are in position to control the effects.

When it comes to life I would define it as “roughly 80% of controllable action in our life comes because of 20% of causes or problems”.

And by my experience it is really worth to use in our life.

I would like to give an example; the example is of a typical family of three;  Husband, Wife and Daughter studying in Grade I.

The family's daily routine is wake up in morning getting ready, having breakfast together, and then father will start for office and drops his daughter at school on the way to office.

Now consider a day when all are ready, breakfast is served father has started having breakfast and waiting for the daughter to ready her schoolbag, father has an important business meeting to attend and yesterday was unsuccessful meeting with another client in office.

The client is big and new for their business, Because of an important meeting to attend with big client he is bit nervous, the agenda and presentation is ready, he has enough time to reach at office and have more 2 hours to go through agenda once more before meeting, but because of his nervousness he can’t think anything other than the meeting with big client. He asks his daughter to come as early as possible; she is ready 10 mins earlier than usual time. Father is nervous and constantly concentrating and thinking of meeting, he asks his daughter to finish her breakfast as soon as possible in little impatient voice, and in hurry daughter drops her glass of milk on her school dress. Suddenly father voice goes loud asking why this has happened, on hearing loud voice of father she had never heard before she starts to cry.

Mother is trying to stop her asking not to cry, the father is really frustrated and asks her wife stating not to encourage her when she does something like that. And not to take side of her, again in loud voice daughter is afraid now, as she is too young to understand father's nervousness she starts crying even louder. Father calms down and then asks his wife to change daughter’s dress, and now she says no I am not going to school and continues crying, father is more frustrated now. He leaves the house impatiently in order to be at office, he starts his car, he is still not calm. After some time he calms down and suddenly remember that he has forgotten important meeting files at home. He has already drove 20 mins again he is impatient and waiting for the "U" turn to go back to home and fetch that files, he reaches to home he fetches the file goes to office, mean while he has also notice that the daughter is still afraid when she has seen him.

He is late in office because of rush hour traffic still he has around 45 mins before the meeting.

He tries to concentrate on the agenda but not able to concentrate thinking of her daughter regarding what happened in morning.

He fails to present content of meeting properly, and not to concentrate on meeting and begs his pardon from client for his presentation, surprisely client agrees to meet next time.

 

In above example you will find following cause was unavoidable and was not in his hand. "roughly 20%"

 

1. Nervousness of the Father, as he was meeting a big client and yesterday was unsuccessful meeting with another client in office.

2. Dropping of milk

 

And following would have been avoided. If he would have control on his nervousness and so frustration and Impatience "roughly 80%"

 

1. Shouting on her daughter who studies in Grade I and so.

2. Crying of Daughter and so.

3. Daughter not ready to go school.

4. Leaving impatiently for office and so.

5. Forgetting the important files and so.

6. Coming back to home fetches file and so

7. Reaching late at office.

8. Thinking of daughter about what he did in morning so,

9. Bad presentation and not interested in meeting so.

10. Postponed of meeting.

Above was just fictitious example but still it says, if he would have controlled and not allowed him self drawn in nervousness or frustration or impatience, some of above 10 actions would have been avoided.