I stole the original idea from Tim Ferriss, who stole it from Pareto. This is not a scientific law. It's more of an empiric observation. In most situations, there seems to be a distribution of 80 to 20% in effectiveness. This means in most offices 20 % of the people will do 80% of the work. Those people will do 80% of their work in 20% of their billed office hours.
The idea is basically, that we are very bad at spreading our effort and time. Ferriss turned this into the 4-hour-workweek but lately, we have seen a more realistic idea taking roots. Many offices have experimented with the 4-day-workweek and couldn't find any loss in the weekly output of their workforce.
People will simply stop wasting as much time in the office and achieve the same goals when they expect to get rewarded with a 3 day weekend.
Idiot! Think! You have a neverending list of things you have to do today! You're probably paralyzed by the number of things you have to do and end up doing none of them! This is the excuse you have waited for! I'm giving you permission to cut 80% of that shit out!
I'm doing this myself right now. I'm going into degenerate mode! Normally I have 19 things on my to-do list. It sounds worse than it is. Many of these things can be done at the same time and many are really easy. (Showering, air the room, sit up straight)
But those things are not going to help me achieve my current goals of writing 1 important paper(Bachelors thesis is probably the international name?), create one 8-minute podcast on leadership, about 6x2 pages of homework in complicated mathematical exercises, and taking 4 exams!
I'm cutting all that productivity shit out of my life for the next four months! It's all great for my mental and physical health, but it directly competes with my study time!
This is how my to-do-list looks for the next 6 months:
I know this looks great and balanced. But consider the things missing from that list! I'm cutting physical exercise. I'm cutting healthy eating. I'm cutting social activities, which took a lot of effort anyway, considering I'm doing everything from home.
I will come out of this period like a fat caveman. Barely able to talk and walk.
But I don't care about that. I analyzed my priorities and these are the six things I need to do every day, to achieve my goals. Everything else is draining my willpower and drawing my attention to unnecessary procrastination.
Do you currently have big goals , that need a degenerate mode?
If not, analyze your daily life.
What goals do you want to achieve?
How do you want to live?
What are the really important things, that suffer from all that useless fluff in your life?
All those things, that are mostly masturbatory. "Oh yeah. I was really busy today. I have done so much! I could barely get around to do any work."
It's like me 5 years ago, when I went on a self-improvement rampage. I wanted to try everything and I wanted to learn everything! Instead, I wasted all my time watching videos on self-improvement and read books on self-improvement. I was so productive and busy! I never got around to actually practice most of those things, I learned.
Cut that shit out! You only have to do 20% of that, to reach 80%. Every day!
Tell me in the comments, what your 20% are.
Don't worry. This post is not in any contest. You're free to engage without getting disqualified!
