Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything
Find the Sweet Spot and Ignore the Rest

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #550: Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything: Find the Sweet Spot and Ignore the Rest

Jeff Sanders
Let's talk about the Pareto Principle, most commonly known as the 80/20 rule, which states that 80% of outcomes are the result of 20% of causes.

In other words, a small fraction of what you do produces the vast majority of your results.

This has profound implications in just about every area of life.

So let's put this to use and see what magic we can make happen.

This is the 5am Miracle, Episode #550.

Apply the 80/20 rule to everything, find the sweet spot, and ignore the rest.

Good morning and welcome to the 5am Miracle.

I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful, lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy.

I am a keynote speaker and corporate trainer specializing in delivering high-energy, interactive, and action-oriented presentations and workshops focused on productivity, wellness, and personal and professional growth.

To learn more, head over to jeffsanders.com/speaking.

Now in the episode this week, I'll break down how the 80/20 rule can work for you, why you are likely already doing what matters most, just not quite enough yet, and how to escape the trap of believing that everything is important and urgent.

Hint, it's not.

Let's get to it.

So I want to jump right in this week with the 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle.

Now this is a concept that honestly I have toyed with, tinkered with, utilized for years and yet somehow never discussed directly on this podcast.

If I'm correct, I first learned of it from Tim Ferriss' book, The 4-Hour Work Week, which was many, many years ago.

And yet this is a concept that's been around for a long, long time.

It recently came back around for me when I saw a post on LinkedIn.

I'm fairly certain that this post has gone viral, at least on some level, and it's from an unknown source.

If I'm correct, it's from a book.

And if that's true, I would love to find out the source.

So if you happen to know where this is from, please email me, jeff@jeffsanders.com.

Now this post that I found basically breaks down the 80/20 rule with some really interesting examples.

And I'm going to read the post to you, and then we're going to discuss a lot more of not just what this principle has in store and what this post can mean, but then we're going to directly apply the 80/20 rule to a variety of scenarios for you and try to figure out how to nail down what the impact can be for your life, for your work, for your goals, most importantly, for your habits, which we're going to get to as well.

Now in this post that I saw on LinkedIn, essentially what they have broken down here is what is listed after you have applied the rule.

In other words, the majority of your success in any area of life is going to come from one primary focus.

And this post essentially decides for you what that answer is going to be.

So here's that post.

It says the 80/20 principle, health consists of 80% eating or nutrition and 20% exercise.

Health incorporates 80% habits or 20% math.

Talking is 80% listening and 20% speaking.

Learning is 80% understanding and 20% reading.

Achieving is 80% doing and 20% dreaming.

Happiness is 80% purpose and 20% fun.

Relationships are 80% giving and 20% receiving.

And improving is 80% persistence and 20% ideas.

The final line in the post says that if you prioritize the 80%, the rest will fall into place.

I really like this concept.

You may or may not agree with the actual breakdown of how you achieve various aspects of life and work.

This is all very subjective and up to you.

But the idea behind this is pretty rock solid.

The idea that in a few key areas of life, if you do a few key things, you get the results you want.

This just seems to be true.

So let's go through this with a little more specificity in terms of how to apply this for your life.

The 80/20 rule once again is that 80% of the outcomes, the results you're going to see, are the result of 20% of the causes.

So a few examples here. 80% of fruit in your garden may be produced by 20% of the plants.

Or 80% of car accidents are actually caused by 20% of drivers.

Or 80% of a company's revenue is generated by 20% of its staff.

In other words, the vast majority of outcomes are caused by a handful of instigators.

These examples are just examples.

The numbers are all just ballpark figures.

But there's a lot of truth to this.

There's a lot of truth to the idea that there's a small subset of the things we do, the actions we take, the people we associate with, our habits that we engage in and repeatedly get back to again and again, that the smallest subset of those somehow are the most powerful and produce phenomenal outcomes.

And you can see where this leads down the road.

If we can identify what that 20% is, what the cause is, we can double down on that and we can get even greater outcomes, bigger and better results.

There's a concept that I discussed in my second book, The Free Time Formula.

The concept is called the Green Pen Strategy.

It is one that every single time I discuss it, people get really excited about it because they see what it can do for them.

I gave a speech just last week in Kansas and I just kind of offhandedly mentioned the Green Pen Strategy at the very end.

And the response that I got to it was so positive and so immediate and it just reminded me that this is powerful.

So the Green Pen Strategy in a nutshell is amplifying your success.

It is identifying the few areas where things are really great and devoting more energy into that and essentially ignoring the mistakes, ignoring the problem spots and saying that's the wrong perspective.

We're not trying to find problems.

We're trying to find success.

And then once we know what that is and where it comes from and we pour ourselves into that a lot more, well, then we get a lot more of the results that we want.

Now in preparation for the discussion of the 80/20 rule, I thought through a few examples that I have used in my own life and I wanted to figure out, does this work?

Is there a way for me to apply this in a way that is applicable and actionable now?

And I found some interesting takes on this.

And so I'm going to go through this with three examples from my own life.

And of course you can picture this for yourself.

The first area I want to focus on is podcasting itself and also for me, public speaking.

The two of these kind of fit really well together here.

And one way that I thought about applying the 80/20 rule wasn't just from the results perspective, but also from time allocation.

And so I thought to myself, well, if I wanted to allocate more time in the world of podcasting and I wanted to be specific about where the time is spent now and then how I could shift that in the future.

Well, the first thing I realized is that approximately 80% of what podcasting or public speaking is for me is preparation.

It is scripting.

It is outlining.

It is brainstorming.

It is getting all the logistics in place is all the technology.

There is so much to be said about getting ready for the moment.

And the final 20% is the performance.

It is the execution of the plan.

In fact, I would argue that 80/20 is the wrong ratio.

It's more like 95 to five, right?

There is so much to be said about preparation.

And so from that perspective, time allotment has a very strong correlation to the 80/20 rule in terms of results.

So with this example here of podcasting/public speaking, if we apply time allotment, we say 80% is preparation, 20% performance.

Now with the 80/20 rule for results, 80% of the success of this podcast is actually based on 20% of my listeners recommending this podcast to their friends.

That's a very different perspective.

On the one hand, you have time allotment for me, the time I will spend to produce the podcast or to give a speech.

But the 80/20 rule is asking, well, what are the results we're trying to get from this?

And then from my perspective, I want to grow the podcast.

I want to do bigger and better speaking engagements.

Well, the question about results is actually different than the question about time allotment.

And yet these two things in theory should be fairly well correlated.

And so once again, 80% of the success of this show is actually based on 20% essentially of listeners recommending this podcast to their friends.

So the show gets more listeners down the road.

So then my question was, well, what's my new plan of action?

What's the pivot I'm going to make because all of this is about the pivot.

We're not here to discuss the 80/20 rules of philosophy or theory.

This is about action.

And so if I were to take my time allotment that I have now, preparation that leads to performance and the 80/20 rule itself, the success I'm going for based on listenership and recommendations, my new plan of action, my pivot is to allocate more time to making this podcast worthy of a great recommendation.

You see the connection here.

My current focus on time allotment is preparation for the show.

The results I want is a bigger show based on recommendations.

All this gets squeezed together to say, I need to allocate more time to getting the results I want.

It's not rocket science.

This is really obvious stuff.

And yet when applied through this lens, it makes so much sense.

And the question for you is going to come down to the self-awareness and the data that points to where your time is currently being spent.

Of course, the specific nature of where the results come from, if you know what that is, and then your new plan of action to connect those dots, to spend more of your time on the things that produce the results you're looking for and to do so in an intentional and sustainable way.

Now a second example that I saw an obvious place to dig into is with running marathons.

There is a very strong correlation here between these same concepts.

And so let's imagine your goal is to run a marathon.

You could, for the sake of an example, argue that your time allotment, the way you spend your time today to prepare for a race, 80% of your time is spent in logistics, planning, preparation, getting your diet, your nutrition, your fitness plan, and 20% is actually running.

That's one example.

One way to view this is that your time allotment, once again, the vast majority of it, the time is spent preparing for the event, and then as an afterthought, you do the event.

Now if you apply the 80/20 rule with a focus on results, you could argue that 80% of the success of your next big race is based on the 20% of time you spent setting your sights far beyond the current finish line.

Let me explain this one.

When I've run a lot of races in my life, I've done quite a few marathons, ultra marathons.

I love races that really push my boundaries.

And one thing that I saw very clearly, especially as I ran a lot farther, was that if someone were to ask me, Hey Jeff, do you want to do a 5k this weekend?

Right?

3.1 mile race.

Well, back years ago when I was not in shape, a 5k sounded like a pretty tough race.

I was a couch potato.

I needed to go run more.

A 5k is difficult.

I have to be up on my feet running for 30, 40, 50 minutes.

It's a difficult race if you're not in shape.

However, if you're in marathon shape, a 5k is a warmup.

It's the very beginning of the process.

It totally flips the script.

All of a sudden it's no longer a difficult challenge.

It's literally the easiest thing you could imagine doing.

And this to me is a shining example of this rule playing out in such a powerful way, which is to say that if I want to be successful in the physical fitness realm of marathons, one argument to be made is that the vast majority of my success is based on my physicality and mentality around what this thing actually is.

And so if I view the 5k as being easy because I can personally run a lot farther, well then I'm not going to have the mental hangups and the difficulties.

I'm actually going to be very well prepared to do my very best.

And that of course is my goal.

So then my question becomes, well, if my current time allotment is based on logistics and running, but the results are asking me to set my sights a lot farther, a lot bigger, a much larger finish line to shoot for, well then my new plan of action, my pivot to make is to allocate more time to pushing the boundaries to see how far I can really go.

Imagine the potential here.

Imagine where this adds up is to say, I want to do more.

I want to challenge myself.

I want to do well and really excel in this arena.

So I want to ask that question, where's all the success come from?

Well, it comes from making the difficult task, not difficult at all.

It comes from making it easy, which means I need to do the work to make that possible, which in this example means to set my sights much, much higher than I have in the past.

But of course that sets me up to be able to achieve a lot more than I ever thought was possible.

If we go back to probably 2007 or so, right when I was graduating college, my final senior year of school, that's when I really began to do distance running and the very beginning stages.

And so my friend Chris and I would go running together.

We'd run three miles, five miles, seven miles.

And this is the very first time in my life that I was running these distances.

My very first five mile run took place my senior year of college, my first seven mile run, my first 10 mile run.

And what I realized while pushing myself to run a little farther, a little more, a little more was that I could, that it was possible for me to do so.

And every single time that I crossed a new personal record, a new finish line, a little bit farther, I knew I could do more.

I proved to myself, well, if I can do seven miles, I can definitely do eight.

If I can do 10, I can do 12.

And that's when I knew that a marathon was possible.

And then once I crossed my very first marathon finish line, I knew an ultra marathon was possible.

You prove the progress to yourself by making progress.

You prove the big finish line can be achieved by living it out.

And this 80/20 rule can ask you to tap into that because you identify what makes the biggest difference and you double down on that.

That's what this is all about.

The success comes from the identification of what matters.

And then your time allotments, your energy, your money, your resources, your focus, everything gets ported to one specific and powerful direction.

That's where success is.

And you probably know it.

You can probably apply this rule to your biggest personal goal right now.

And you know what this is, that one thing that really will make the difference.

Now as one final example here, that's a little bit goofy in this arena, I want to discuss having kids and try to apply the 80/20 rule to parenting, which I think does fit in kind of a funny way.

So my time allotment at present, we could argue, is that I spend 80% of my time convincing my girls to go to bed, which is so, so true in so many ways.

And 20% of my time trying to remember what my life was like before I had kids.

So all jokes aside, this time allotment strategy is legit, right?

I need to figure out where is my time going?

And it is true that if you ask me emotionally, where do you feel like your time was spent just yesterday with your girls?

You know, Tessa and I had regular work day.

What did I do with my kids yesterday?

Well, the majority of the time I had with them was literally just trying to get them into bed because they never want to go.

This is the classic parenting challenge.

And it's true.

It's based in reality because that's what we spent our whole evening routine doing is just getting them to the next step to finally get to bed.

And then of course, once they are in bed, then Tessa and I stood around being like, what was life like before them?

Which is true.

There's a lot of truth to it.

So let's apply the 80/20 rule with the results then to see where that can take us.

Well, in this case, I would argue that 80% of being a great parent is based on the 20% of time that you spend being fully present with them.

I think this is true.

I think it's extremely powerful to be able to be present with your kids.

And then when you are, that's where great parenting shows up.

That's where the love shows up.

So my question then is if I want to now pivot, have a new plan of action, it's going to be to allocate more time and energy to listening and engaging directly with my kids and doing so as often as I can.

And I would argue doing so specifically in that time we spend trying to get them in bed.

If that's our quality time together, if that's the time we spend one-on-one every single night, well then let's make that count.

Let's read better books and let's brush their teeth with more intentionality.

Let's just be fully there in those moments so that we can have better experiences.

If that's what it is, if the majority of our time is just the morning routine and then we have work all day and then we have the evening routine, well the majority of my life with my kids is just simply getting them out of bed and putting them back into bed.

So okay, that's what it is for now.

Well then let's be better in those moments.

That's my plan.

And I think this 80/20 rule is really allowing me to acknowledge that and to directly address that.

So for you, same question applies.

Pick an area of your life or work where you really want to do better.

You see a chance to improve and you want to apply these principles and your current time allotment, the results you're going for, and the pivot to the new plan of action to get the newer and better results you know are possible.

And on that note, let's go to the concept that I brought to the top of the show, which is that you are likely already doing what matters most, but just not quite enough yet.

Your results are already there.

The fitness that you want to achieve.

You probably are already doing something towards your fitness, but one workout a week as an example is not going to be enough.

Or if you want great financial health, you're probably working with your money now and have good goals, but you're not spending enough time that's quality and that's progressive moving you forward where you want to go.

Or you may have a great relationship that you want to improve, but the one-on-one time that you spend with your significant other just isn't enough and it's not deep enough.

It's not there enough.

If you have an area of your life where you are lacking success, the correlation that I see most often is there's not enough investment in that area.

You might have the problem and know it's there and you've kind of just given a little effort.

Little bit here and there, but it's not enough.

The 80/20 rule is asking more of you.

The opportunity here is to determine where the success comes from, whether it is your relationships, financial health, your fitness, whatever the area happens to be.

Then of course, allocate more time to what matters most.

Then on a frequent basis, re-evaluate.

Do your weekly reviews.

Really dig in and ask the question, "Am I still there?

Is the time being allocated appropriately?

Am I digging in enough?

Am I pouring in enough resources, time, energy, money, focus, everything?

Am I giving myself to this end result?"

If the answer is no, you know what to do.

Just do more of that stuff.

Of course, assuming you identified what actually makes the difference.

Then the opportunity shows up, which is to say this doesn't mean you have to spend all of your time solving a single problem.

The cool thing about this is that you can focus on one key area and the biggest results come from that, which actually means you do not have to spend a lot of time.

It's just quality time.

It's intentional time.

It's focused time.

You get the best bang for your buck.

As an example there, you could do a 30-minute workout four days a week and have significantly better fitness than you're doing now with workouts that are just half effort, workouts that are just kind of sort of there, and they're kind of sparse and not really focused.

If we dial this in and get intentional, you can make 30 minutes really count, and it can be very, very powerful.

That's what we're talking about.

You figure out what matters.

You pour into it.

You get that powerful impact.

Result shows up.

You move on.

So it's not a massive time investment.

It's an intentionality investment.

Now the final thought that I have here on this topic is that we want to discuss this trap of believing that everything is important and urgent.

Like I was just saying, there are a few key things that matter, and you can be intentional about those few things and then walk away from the rest.

That solution to walk away from the rest is an acknowledgment that not everything matters.

It's an acknowledgment that not everything is important and urgent, and only a few select things truly need all of you to be there.

And when you give yourself to those few things, you get the results so you can walk away from this false belief that all the things in your to-do list have to happen because they don't.

Once again, in my second book, The Free Time Formula, I talk about this concept that I define, I call nonsense.

And nonsense is anything that never has to happen.

And when you figure out what that stuff is, that nonsense, you can cut that stuff immediately from your life and your work.

And as soon as that happens, you have more free time, more flexibility, more margin, and you feel so much less stress, so much more potential is there.

And you take it one step further and you stop doing anything that's optional.

Nonsense are things that never have to happen.

The optional category, of course, are things you could opt out of and still be fine.

That's the next thing to let go of.

And then finally, you say no to all new requests of your time.

At this point, cutting things, saying no to things that are optional, saying no to new things on your calendar and in your life, you're going to have a lot more time.

And with that free time, you can now double down on those few things that matter.

If you even need that much time.

Once again, you may not, but you will need to be more intentional once you figure out what that core thing is, and then you are fully present in that core idea.

The 80/20 rule has a lot of power if you let it.

If you let it work for you, it can change significantly some area of your life or work.

I love the potential here.

I love to see where this could go.

And I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

How has this changed your life?

How has this led to something newer and better for you?

You can email me, Jeff@jeffsanders.com.

I would love to hear how a concept like this has pivoted your time, your focus, your goals.

Where does it lead?

Because I see this as being incredibly potential filled for so many areas, especially as a guy who approaches his life from this perspective of, I have a lot of goals.

I have a lot of boxes to check.

I have a lot of future ambitions, and I know I'm not going to have time for all of them.

I know that I'm not going to have this endless amount of free time to just flex.

So being intentional and being specific is required.

And having said that, I want to make sure that the time I'm spending is fruitful, that it does produce these best results, that I know what those things happen to be.

Just recently, I found a couple of great YouTube channels to help me with my time at the gym, to build bigger muscles more effectively.

Because honestly, I've been pretty lackadaisical when it comes to my trips to the gym.

Yes, I go.

Yes, I'm active.

Yes, I'm lifting weights, and I'm doing some stretching, some cardio.

It's fine.

I know the time there is good, but it's not great.

And I know it.

I was basically phoning it in for a long time.

It was just an activity I was used to doing, and it got very habitual, and I just got into a rhythm.

And that's a good thing.

It helps to maintain my level of fitness.

But I'm not going to grow with that mentality.

I'm not going to improve very fast or at all if I'm just kind of mindlessly going through the motions.

And I feel like that's the biggest opportunity that we all have in so many areas of life is to recognize where we're just phoning it in, recognize where we're just not alive, not really alert.

And if we call attention to those areas and we can double down on them, the possibilities here are endless.

You can spend less time in the gym if you want to get better results, spend more time and get even better results than that.

It's just so awesome to be able to view your life as an opportunity to get better as opposed to just another thing on the checklist to get done.

Now, I had this thought about this podcast actually literally earlier today, which is that recording this show is one of my checkboxes.

It's one of my things to do.

And I started the recording this morning and I stopped it, turned it off and I deleted it.

Number one, not very good recording, but number two, I realized that one of the problems I had with that recording was my mentality around it.

I viewed it as a thing to get done instead of an opportunity to talk to you instead of the chance to share helpful information and to provide value and be of service and to do something that's more than just another checkbox.

That's not what I want this show to be.

It's not what it was designed to be.

I don't want my life to be filled with boxes to check.

It's just so shallow and so impersonal.

It's so unhelpful versus the approach of what if this could be more?

What if this could be something of value?

That's what I want my life to be filled with.

I want your life and your work to be filled with as many, not non-checkboxes as possible, as many valuable pursuits as possible.

And so I see that being true here.

I see the possibilities.

And so once again, you can email me your thoughts on this, jeff@jeffsanders.com.

I think this is a really cool one and I see a lot of potential here.

For the action step this week, pick one area of your life that needs a readjustment and double down on the few actions that are producing the most results.

The 80/20 rule gives you an opportunity to do more with less.

So find out what is working well and spend a lot more time in those few areas.

In other words, stop trying to do everything.

Do what matters.

Forget the rest.

Now, of course, be sure to subscribe to this podcast and your favorite podcast app or become a VIP member of the 5am Miracle community by getting the premium ad-free version with exclusive bonus episodes at 5ammiraclepremium.com.

That's all I've got for you here on the 5am Miracle Podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life, and all that fun begins bright and early.

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