Working on things that produce the highest returns in terms of productivity and income is vital to the rate at which you grow online.  You may have heard of the “Pareto Principle” (often referred to as the 80-20 rule) and why you should be applying it to the way you tackle projects and your overall business.

What is the 80-20 rule?

The 80-20 rule as it applies to being successful -  simply states that 80% of the results arise from 20% of the effort.  It’s not exact, but you will find your numbers to very often correlate with the 80-20 rule.

• 80% of your income will come from 20% of your work
• 80% of your complaints are from 20% of your customers
• 80% of your time is spent on 20% of your projects

As you can see, many of these numbers will probably ring true for you in several facets of your work.  Whether you’re writing, selling, marketing, or providing customer service, understanding this principle and applying it to achieve maximum results is crucial to your success.

How can the 80-20 rule help me?

You can maximize both your income and productivity by understanding how the principle affects your everyday actions and results.  We often get caught in the trap of spending the majority of our time on things that tend to have very little impact overall on the results we get – when we should be spending our time on the 20% of things that produce 80% of our income or the headway we make.

Once you have identified your core/key areas that provide the most return, you need to then start focusing on those as much as possible.  In addition to simply revenue or income numbers – you can look at:

• Customer service
• Income and revenue
• Marketing and advertising
• Content creation
• Promotion of your services
• Time spent on graphic design

The list can really go on and on.  When you are working, think about whether or not it’s worth the time and effort to spend 3-4 hours working on a footer design that really won’t enhance or build upon your current offerings.  However, it may be worth it to spend a week on product pricing because it can have a huge impact on your business.

I tend to focus on the things that can provide immediate or long-term results relative to their time commitments.  The key is to identify the most profitable and results-producing parts of what you do and pour your energy into those things.

Adapting the mindset

Probably the hardest thing about integrating the 80-20 Rule into your daily routine is making it a habit to continuously focus on the things that provide the largest return.  While there will be some aspects that you may not enjoy about some of the things that you know you need to focus on (but you don’t really want to) – it will help propel your business, productivity, and income – very rapidly.