Outsourcing: Whats More Important Than Having Time?
The Pareto principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This principle will add hours to your days and compound your happiness.
Outsourcing has never been easier and cheaper
It’s often thrown around in business as nothing more than a buzzword. Few professionals and businesses actually do a full Pareto principle analysis of their business and almost no one I’ve come across has applied the same to their life as a whole.
Other than two people: Richard Kock and Tim Ferriss–and the people who have since followed in their footsteps (me included). The 80/20 Principle is the source material for what Tim wrote in The 4-Hour Work Week. The principle of outsourcing was a main topic in Tim Ferris’ book, and in his book The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less, Richard Koch expands on these points and more.
When applied to work, productivity will go through the roof, but when applied to your life outside of work, happiness and fulfillment do just the same.
Below we have 5 ways you can implement the Pareto principle in your life, and use outsourcing techniques to save you time and make you more money.
1. Outsourcing The Work That Produces The Least Income
The Pareto Principle
Do the 20% of your work that leads to 80% of your results: Track all the time you spend on projects each hour of each day for a week. How many of these things were necessary? How many got you closer to your goals? How many were a waste of time? How many could someone else have done?
Pick the 20% of your tasks that yield 80% of the results and outsource or simply stop the rest. Wondering what to do with your remaining time? I’m sure you’ll find something to do.
2. Fire The Customers That Generate The Least Income
Locate the 20% of your customers who drive 80% of your profits: Find your top 20% customers (by profit, not revenue) and fire the rest. Yes, fire them. The goal is not to work your life away but to make a good living while enjoying your life. If you must work more, then list out the characteristics of your 20% customers and go out and find more of them. You will not believe how liberating it is to fire a customer who’s been a real pain in the ass.
//
//
3. Apply The Pareto Principle To Friends And Colleagues
Prioritize the 20% of your friends who give 80% of your support and enjoyment: If you apply 80/20 to your relationships, you will surely find that a few people in your life provide the majority of your support, excitement, laughter and feelings of connection. On the other side, there is likely another 20% group of people who account for most your sleepless nights, tears, anger and frustration. If you don’t want to feel this way, stop spending time around your bottom 20. Fire them and work on duplicating your top 20. This may sound a little callous, but it’s not. It’s practical. The quality of our life comes down to the quality of the people and experiences that fill it.
Working Efficiently = More Time To Do What You Love
4. Spend More Time Doing The Things You Love
Fill your life with the 20% of your experiences that give 80% of your happiness: As humans, our two biggest priorities are to move towards pleasure and away from pain. As mentioned above, find the few people, things, places and experiences that provide 80% of your happiness, fulfillment, pleasure and excitement.
Find the things that cause you to feel the majority of your negative emotions. Focus your time on the top 20% and avoid the bottom 20% like the plague.
5. Apply The Pareto Principle To Your Workout Regime
Do the 20% of your workouts that lead to 80% of your physical gains: The majority of fitness results come from a small part of most workouts. 80% of the muscle is built in the last 20% of the reps. Cross-fit is a great example. The workouts are 7-14 minutes long on average but they provide more physical benefit than most hour-long workouts. Spending more time on something is not always a good thing.
If you believe your workouts must take an hour then you’ll likely miss a lot more of them. What if they only took 7 minutes, but that seven minutes really tested your limits? You’re likely to show up a lot more often.
Somewhere along the way, most of us were taught to associate fulfillment and worth with the number of hours spent–thinking the more the better. This has lead many of us to working aimlessly just to say we filled the day. This IS NOT the goal. The goal is be fulfilled, happy, efficient, effective and more than anything else, to enjoy life. Happiness is a daily right. It is not something we need to work our ass off for years to finally achieve.
Start outsourcing, prioritize your work and apply the Pareto principle to your life immediately.
Resources
Outsourcing:
Elance.com – With a database of 500,000+ businesses, Elance is one of the best resources for finding outsourcing partners.
Guru.com – Over 400,000 businesses actively using this site and with Safepay, your money is protected.
Further Reading:
