Ken Nubo

If I were to throw all the self improvement knowledge away and just retain one thing, it would be the 80/20 rule, or Pareto rule. Wikipedia defines it as:

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, 80% of the effects comes from 20% of the causes.

Business management thinker Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of income in Italy went to 20% of the population. It is a common rule of thumb in business; e.g., “80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.”

Using the Pareto rule, I was able to cut my weight lifting exercise time down drastically (1 hour instead of 3) by repeatedly doing some of the exercises that work a lot of muscle groups in one motion, instead of the many exercises that work on one muscle group at a time.

Same thing for reading material, I used to read a lot of how to books that are sub-par at best. Now a days I only read the “recommended” books that are the best in the field to get the best information in the shortest time.

Same for social circles also. It’s okay to have a small social circle full of selective friends then a large mob of mediocre ones. It’s somewhat true that you’re the average of your closest 10 buddies.

Pareto rule, rules.