The 80/20 Rule: Maximising Impact, Minimising Busy Work.

One of the things that has always struck me about amazingly productive people is their ability to quickly decide whether something is essential. These incredibly effective people seem to be able to eliminate the unimportant and only focus on tasks that will move them closer towards their goals.

A better way of making sure you get the important things done.

I recommend you collect all the routine tasks you must do daily, weekly and monthly and then separate them into their own list. What this does is help remove tasks that need doing but do not improve the quality of your life or take you closer towards achieving your goals. Those things must be done: taking the garbage out, doing the weekly sales report or cleaning your house. These tasks will not take you further to achieving the goals you have set for yourself. Essentially, you are demoting their importance to you so you can focus on the higher-quality tasks.

We naturally move towards the easy tasks.

The problem is when you have a to-do list full of essential and unimportant tasks, you will naturally navigate towards doing the easy tasks. Doing the quick, easy tasks gives you the dopamine hit we crave, and you see your to-do list shrink. The problem is…