[Productivity & Happiness Exercise] What's Your 20%?

We’ve all surely heard of the 80/20 Principle, or Pareto’s Law as it’s more formally known. It goes something like this:

80% of the results come from 20% of the effort.

When applied to work, productivity will go through the roof.

And when applied to your life outside of work, your happiness and fulfillment sky-rocket.

It’s often thrown around in business as nothing more than a buzzword. Few actually do a full 80/20 analysis of their business and almost no one we know has likely applied the same to their life as a whole.

The time and energy saved and gained will blow your mind.

All it takes is a shift in thinking.

Try the following exercise for a few weeks and the energy and time in your life will never be the same. :)

Boost your Productivity and Happiness with this 80/20 Exercise!

5 ways to apply the 80/20 Principle to enhance your life in work, friends, and experiences to boost your productivity and overall happiness:

1. 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 discontinue the rest. Wondering what to do with your remaining time? Enjoy life.

2. Prioritize the 20% of your friends who provide 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.

3. Fill your life with the 20% of your experiences that provide 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. Also 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.

I know this sounds simple.

But few people stop to actually do it.

It is truly possible to spend the majority of your time doing the things that you love.

The only way to get there is taking Pareto’s 80/20 principle seriously. It will make all the difference.

Do not let more than 3 months go by without performing a full 80/20 breakdown of all areas of your life (especially your personal life). It will only take a couple hours and those hours will likely save days before you know it… 80/20 in action yet again.

Somewhere along the path of life, 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. That is what Pareto stumbled on all these years ago. We encourage you to do the same.

Where's the 20% you MUST focus on to boost your productivity and happiness?

Finding the RIGHT place to spend your energy and time so that everything you do serves you is worth the time to do this simple, yet massively powerful exercise!

I do this regularly and it has had amazing impact by helping me spend my energy and time wisely. Cutting out any waste or unsupportive things in my life helps to ensure my efforts are spent in the right place and helps create my ideal life too!

Enjoy this exercise as you continue to create time to EXHALE in your life, so you can THRIVE!

A Simple tool, when applied creates MASSIVE RESULTS!!!