ThinkWeek #3 — Day 4

I started today jotting a few notes (you can see in the photo above!) while sipping some tea:

• I’ve not finished “Side Hustle”, but I feel I am at a natural “stopping point” where I need to do. So I’ve put a placeholder in it and will come back to it later.
• Going to pick up “The 80/20 Principle” — although I was worried that it might be a lot to bite off. My brain is starting to feel a little fatigued now.
• Main goal for the day was to really get the brain thinking in a more “80/20 fashion”.
• In addition, I had a random thought fall out of my brain in that I should get some shorter books, and clean/separate notebooks for future ThinkWeeks. Not very interesting, but hey “full transparency” and all that.

I have to say, I’m really pleased I picked up “The 80/20 Principle” — it didn’t disappoint!

Hello, The 80/20 Principle

Keep in mind — as I said — I am looking to get the “80/20 thinking” from the book, not analysis (although I read those bits). I’m only going to talk about the thinking side-of-things.

I’ve actually found writing this post hard — because frankly, the principle is really simple as a concept, it just seems that we humans have a hard time implementing it.

If you want to dig into the details, check out the Wikipedia page.

I’m more interested in why us human beings seem to struggle so hard with this.

Why do we find it so hard to accept?

Koch gets on to this point almost immediately. The Pareto Principle is not only a power law but it’s also requires us to embrace chaos theory.

Essentially, we’re saying:

• Not everything is equal.
• Not everything is shared fairly.
• You can do everything right one time, do the exact same thing and fail.
• It’s never as simple as A > B. But sometimes — perhaps often — it is.
• If you get off to a bad start, you’re more likely to lose. It sucks to be you.
• Oh, and if you do happen to get a good thing going, if you take your hands off the wheel — it will start to unravel and fall apart again.

… and our brains hate ALL of this! Everything should be neat and tidy, shared equally and “just work” if I follow the playbook because DEMOCRACY DAMMIT!

It’s not all doom and gloom.

There’s a major saving grace here:

It’s a predictable non-linear pattern.

If I were attempt to keep it simple, there’s strategies that can help make this work more for you, than against you.

Habits and routines give you a great foundation to work from.

Such as those in “The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs”. I also have to give a shout-out to “How to Have a Good Day” — some great stuff on the “Mind/Body Loop” in there.

Copy whatever patterns you see working for other people that are where you want to be.

“Side Hustle”, that I’ve also read this week is a great blueprint. Immerse yourself and beg/borrow/steal patterns from incredible people. That’s what Tim Ferriss has been doing exceptionally well for years via his podcast.

Accept that it may not work out.

There’s too many variables at play, or maybe it was just bad timing and your “starting conditions” weren’t right. Things will fail, that’s OK. Just get back in the game.

Have faith in the process not the result.

Be part of the “vital few” that are hustling, and you’ll end up with what you’re after. We’re leaning on the predictability here — given A+B you often get C, but you might get a Z now and then.

I guess, in many ways — the 80/20 rule really does start to remove a lot of the apparent “voodoo” from the “law of attraction”. Thoughts eventually influence behaviour, which then starts to pull you towards the “vital few” that get results in that area.

This all sounds wonderful, what do I do with it?

For me, I like to keep things simple — and I would take away a single question, and use it regularly:

Where’s the “vital few” things here giving me the results (good or bad)?

Forget numbers, forget data — just start with that.

You get the usual (and important) examples:

• What 20% of my customer base generates 80% of revenues?
• What 20% of activities bring about 80% of my happiness?

Thing is, I want to 10x my life — which means we need to start using this principle to tackle the tough questions. We want a revolution!

• Of the things that make me happy, what makes me really happy? Let’s do those more often!
• Of my habits, how good do I feel after? Let’s replace those bad ones with better habits!
• Of my friends, which vital few energise me when we meet up? Yeah, those are annoying — let’s stop hanging out!
• Of (the remaining) people I hang out with, who are the vital few that results in me going out on all-night benders and binge drinking? But we have… Fun? I need to ditch the party crew?
• What activities at work actually contribute towards a better performance review? Yeah, I hate checking emails all the time! DELETE!
• Of the activities in my career (not job) — how much enjoyment do I get from each? Wait, do I need to quit my job?

Yeah, that escalated quickly. This was another key take-away from the book:

Revolution is revolution. It’s uncomfortable, wretched and dangerous.

Oftentimes, as we start digging into these things — we find that we see things we may not like at first. We need to remove ourselves from friendship circles, quit jobs — maybe even careers, stop giving loved ones so much time etc.

80/20 thinking is contrarian thinking. This is why Warren Buffet gets a few mentions. You’re not looking to find “the common path” — you’re looking for what makes most of what you’re after go to only those “vital few”.

It’s time to make a habit of kicking the door open to every key part of life and asking what needs to be amplified and what needs to be eradicated.

As you start asking questions, you can go out and get the data to support it.
Just be careful! 80/20 Analysis is based on a snapshot in time — be sure to analyse and time and make sure you’re not just looking at an anomaly. For example:

I’m ditching Frank as a friend as when out with him I drank 80% of my alcohol intake!

… data taken at the month of Frank’s wedding and stag do. Poor Frank. Not only married but losing his best man? 😉

Want to be happier? Start with pain relief.

I work in technology, and we do weekly “reviews” (called “retrospectives”). Often, when I get in a new team I follow a simple format, getting the team to write down:

• What made them “mad”? (If this goes on much longer, I will murder people and/or quit).
• What made them “sad”? (It sucks, but whatever).
• What made them “glad” (Woo hoo! Loved it!).

It follows the same thinking as 80/20:

What activities do we need to fix/remove? (Start with “mad” as a priority).
What activities do we want to try to enable/do more of? (The “glad”).

Koch also suggests the same — focus on pain relief first, as that actually has a greater impact on your happiness.

Once you’re done with that — crack on with the other areas in your life and focus on epic levels of happiness and fulfilment!

Where’s the “vital few” for you?

On that note, I think I will end this post :)

There’s really so much more in the book, and a huge number of fascinating samples — I really recommend you give it a read.

Be awesome.