The Pareto Principle states that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This is a great thing to realize in business because 80% of your results will come from 20% of your effort. Or when you’re looking for something to wear in the morning remember that 80% of what you wear comes from 20% of your wardrobe. Or 80% of what you’ll love to binge on Netflix comes from 20% of what they recommend.
So last night I plugged in my iPhone to charge and the battery was at 84%!
Of course I’ve been using my phone for two things. 1) texting and 2) calling. That’s it. No other apps are on the phone except the ones I can’t delete.
No email.
No Facebook.
No Instagram.
No Amazon, Duolingo, Etsy, iTranslate, Quickshot, Zillow, Google Calendar, Buffer, Camera+, YouTube, Bible app or anything else.
I’m using the phone getting ready for when I can switch to the Light Phone II (and I’m loving it.)
So what does this have to do with the Pareto Principle?
When I saw that my phone was still at over 80% it struck me that I had flipped what I was spending time on. For years I had been spending 80% of my time on the less important things – social media, scrolling through Instagram, watching something on YouTube – and 20% on real life. Now I’m (literally) spending 20% of my daily efforts on my phone and my real life is getting the full 80% benefit.
If you’d like to learn more about applying the 80/20 principle to your life then here’s a great article on the subject – and also where I stole the featured image from.