Prioritising: A sure way to success this year

In the early 20th Century, Vilfredo Pareto, a brilliant Italian economist, made a keen observation. He noticed that in a group, 20 percent of the people did 80 percent of the work; and that 20 percent of products in a business brought 80 percent of the revenue, and that 20 percent of taxpayers paid 80 percent of the tax.He also noticed that 20 percent of the people owned 80 percent of the wealth and land in almost all countries. This principle has been tested and found to be true in almost all situations and if exploited, it presents a sure way to success.

As you start this new year, I am certain you are yearning to grow and change and be better at the end of the year. I propose to you that the reason you were less efficient than you could have been last year, was because you either didn’t identify the 20 percent of activities that bring the 80 percent of your success; or you didn’t radically cut out the 80 percent of the activities that only bring 20 percent of your success. The good news is that this can change today.

My task for you is to identify the 20 percent of the activities that produce 80 percent of your results and surgically cut out the rest. Every evening, before you go to bed, write down a list of the top 10 activities you plan to do the next day; list them by their importance; and strive to do the top two activities; and you will end the year a tremendous success. Many people spend the day doing the bottom eight activities, usually because they are easier to do and more urgent; and at the end of the day, they will only have achieved 20 percent of their potential. 

No one gives better guidance on how to do this than the legendary American author and speaker John Maxwell. John mentions that there are three criteria that we need to consider when deciding the most important tasks. Tasks that are required of you, tasks that give you the greatest return on effort, and tasks that give you the greatest reward (internal excitement) should be our most important tasks. 

For each task, if you gave it a score from zero to two for each of these criteria, you could then rank the tasks by the total points they score.Put another way, for each of your 10 tasks, ask yourself, is this task required; in other words, am I out of a job if I don’t do it? Second, does this work give me a great return on my effort? In other words, am I good at it and are people willing to pay for it; third, is this task rewarding, in other words, does it give me inner joy as I do it?

So, grab a pen and paper, and generate a list of the 20 percent of activities that give you 80 percent of return, identify the 20 percent of things that waste 80 percent of your time, identify the 20 percent of your workers that give you 80 percent of your results and spend 80 percent of your time with them. 

Identify the 20 percent of the friends that give you 80 percent return on social capital and spend 80 percent of your allocated friend time with them. Identify the 20 percent of your relatives that give you 80 percent of the social security and family intimacy you need and spend 80 percent of your “allocated relatives’ time” on them.

Thereafter, decide what you will not do this year. Identifying what you should not waste your time doing. Cut out the 80 percent of activities that are leaking your time and life. Who are the 80 percent of your friends who are wasting your time? 

What are the 80 percent products that only bring 20 percent return? Who are the 80 percent of your workers that bring on 20 percent of the productivity? Get a big surgical knife and brutally cut them out! Because good strategy is deciding what not to do. And who should do the 80 percent if they need to be done; delegate these tasks to technology, and to other people. That my friend, is the secret to prioritising.

The author, David Mukunya is a medical doctor and associate professor at
Busitema University.
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