The 80/20 Principle of Time Management

By James A. Baker 
Founder and Chairman
Baker Communications
December 2011

Back in the late 1800s, an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto made the observation that 80% of the world’s wealth seemed to be controlled by 20% of the people. This handy little observation on the way commodities tend to be ordered and controlled soon developed into a handy rule of thumb for measuring all sorts of relationships: 80% of the church donations are made by 20% of the church members, 20% of the church members create 80% of the complaints (not the same people as in the donation groups!), 20% of the sales reps book 80% of the sales, and 80% of the resources go to address only 20% of the needs.

We can apply the same principle to time management: 80% of our time ends up being devoted to only 20% of the activities that are on our list every day. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, the ultimate goal of time management it to spend the majority of your most productive hours concentrating on your most important activities – the ones with the highest payback or the ones devoted to helping you achieve your most important priorities. It would not be wrong to say that we ought to be spending 80% of our time concentrating on the top 20% of those activities rated highest in value on our list of goals and objectives (developing the next marketing campaign, shopping to get your wife that really special anniversary present, meeting with your most valuable clients, preparing the presentation for the next meeting with all the C level executives, etc.).

Unfortunately, this is not always how it plays out. More than likely, we spend 80% of our valuable time attending to items that are definitely NOT in our top 20%. We may actually waste hours of valuable time on things that are in the bottom 20%, or not on our list at all! Given the fact that you can blow 80% of your time on relatively worthless endeavors, it just makes sense for you to get some kind of handle on how your time is being used every day. One good place to start addressing this issue is to do a simple survey of your time use. Next week, get a small note pad and pause every 30 minutes during the day to briefly jot down the tasks you have done since the last break. Don’t think or analyze, just write them down and get back to what you were doing. Keep this up for a week.

At the end of the week, scan the list of tasks you have done and look for trends or patterns. Ask yourself:

1. How much time did I spend responding to urgent, unscheduled requests?
2. Did I fall behind on completing high value, important tasks?
3. Did I take work home with me, or worry about it at home, because important things did not get done?
4. Did I have to divert time and energy away from family and/or friends, because important deadlines had to met, even though it was after hours?
5. Did I spend more time than was really necessary doing mundane tasks like answering email and phone calls, or chatting with coworkers?
6. Did I spend the majority of my time – at least 50% or more – working intently on my most important, high value priorities?
7. What task consumed the most minutes during for the week? Did it contribute directly to getting important tasks done?
8. Take a look at the tasks you did during the week you would rank as being in the lowest 20% according to value or priority on your to do list. How much total time did you spend on these tasks?

Now that you know what you have been doing, and how it stacks up against your list of priorities and the total amount of time you have to invest, are you satisfied with the picture you see? I am not asking if you can survive it or are you resigned to living with it; are you satisfied with it? If not, you can change it.
Getting ready to start a new year is a great time to resolve to manage your time better:

• Learn to say no.
• Plan your day by setting appointments for all of your important activities (even those related to family and home) and don’t surrender those time slots to other things.
• Delegate activities that don’t have immediate high value pay-offs for you.
• Let voice mail help you sort messages according to your schedule, and only return the important ones now.
• Schedule time to check email instead of looking every time the chime announces a new message.
• Keep your door closed or your back to the rest of the office so that you don’t make eye contact with coworkers and invited unwanted conversations.

Above all, don’t let 80% of the unimportant stuff steal away the time you need to achieve the top 20% of your most important goals.

Re-Print Permission
This article may be reprinted in it's entirety if the following conditions are met:

1. The complete tag with the author's name and contact information is included immediately after the article.
2. A copy of the printed article is mailed to the author at 10101 SW Freeway Suite 630 Houston, Texas 77074 within 30 days of publication.
3. The article is presented in a positive light as part of an appropriate business related publication.