\ Iman’s constant cravings… » 80/20

80/20

Under: Thought of The Day @ 4:10 pm on Saturday, 06.3.06

I came across a newspaper insert that talked about the 80/20 rule …which simply states that 80% of results stem from 20% of efforts…perfect. If you think about it from a social perspective, it would mean that 20% of our friends account for 80% of our enjoyment and satisfaction. So, shouldn’t we just spend a lot more time with the group that gives us more satisfaction and enjoyment and a lot less time with the other?!? after all, who would want to be bothered by negative, annoying individuals who have very little else to do or say but complain!?! It would only make sense, right!?

5 Comments »

Hamzeh N.

06.3.06 @ 8:27 pm

I’ve never heard of the 80/20 rule :S

Anyway, I think if this rule is true then people will loose some of their best friends (the 20%) if they do what you suggested, and that is stop interacting with the other 80%.

Because once you stop dealing with the 80% that don’t contribute to 80% of your satisfaction, you’ve reduced the pool of people to the 20% who do, and then you would have to apply the 80/20 rule on those again and that way you will end up with 20% of the original 20% who are contributing to your new achieved sense of satisfaction.

Iman

06.4.06 @ 9:16 pm

not really… you’d be just investing more time in what(who) you feel matters most!

Hamzeh N.

06.5.06 @ 12:46 am

lol, ok, but you can only invest an X amount of time, and in your post you suggested shifting the amount of time you currently focus on the 80% “less important people” to the 20% “more important people”.

Now, and a few weeks after you’ve adopted this strategy, apply your 80/20 rule again. This time, you’ve managed to make 80% of your original 20% less valuable. And since the group of people themselves haven’t changed, and only you did, then the new result which says that suddenly 80% of what used to satisfy you before doesn’t satisfy you today emerges.

What a way to loose friends and make yourself a grumpy person iman!! :D

Abed. Hamdan

06.5.06 @ 2:38 am

I read about this rule. It’s also called “Pareto’s Principle”.An Italian economist,Vilfredo Pareto, observed in 1906 that 20% of Italians owned 80% of that nation’s wealth. Over time, this ratio has been applied in various situations and has become a rule of thumb: the value of a small number of items in a group far outweighs that derived from the other items.
spending 80% of our time with our close friends ? I think we already do :) we’re just with the same people, maybe more than 80% of the time..

Iman

06.5.06 @ 9:36 am

hamzeh c,
In this particular situation if 80% are going to - say - be the cause of my constant headache, who don’t necessarily add value to my days/life and I’ve already figured out who these are, and decided that I no longer want to invest a quarter of my time in them…instead it would be with those I enjoy being around - from all aspects, it just wouldn’t make sense to apply the 80/20 on the original 20 … again!

That’s (c for complicated)

Hi Abed,  I too think we already do, but sometimes we have to re-evaluate…

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