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Hello everyone, this is Cody Nickol with Work Growth Thrive. Welcome to my channel. The purpose of my content is to provide you with top insights and tips on how to thrive and reach your potential in the workplace. Today, I’m going to talk to you about how to consistently achieve the best results.
The Pareto Principle
To do this, we’re going to take a deep dive into something called the Pareto Principle. In essence, this principle states that 80% of your top results are generated by just 20% of your tasks or efforts. The Pareto principle was discovered by Mr. Vilfredo Pareto, an engineer and economist who lived in the late 1800s. He observed that only 20% of the Italian population owned 80% of the land. Over time, this 80/20 rule has been discovered in various areas and is considered a natural law.
For instance, in IT, 20% of bugs cause 80% of errors. In sales, 20% of customers generate 80% of revenues. In the workplace, typically, the top 20% of employees generate 80% of key results. The question is, how can we apply this Pareto principle to achieve the best results in our work situation consistently?
To answer this question, we need to ask ourselves three simple questions:
- What are we doing?
- When are we doing it?
- How are we doing it?
These questions will serve as a guide to apply the Pareto principle effectively.
What are Your Most Important Tasks?
So let’s get to the first question. Consider all the tasks that you need to do to get your job done. If you analyze it, you’ll probably see that only 20% of those tasks are really critical tasks that contribute to 80% of the results. In my case, I’m an organizational psychologist, and I work in talent acquisition.
For me, the main thing is to make sure that my clients are doing okay. That means I’m taking care of my clients and those who I’m trying to convince to work in a particular job. I have to make sure that they always know what’s going on, and their needs are being met.
Everything else is important but secondary. What do you do with the rest of the tasks that need to be done so that you can focus more on this top 20% that drives 80% of your results? There are three things you can do: eliminate, delegate or automate.
Delegate
Let’s take my situation as an example. After talking with my manager, we decided to hire an intern. I was able to delegate a lot of the tasks to the intern that I don’t really need to be doing but are nevertheless important. This was great! I could focus more on the tasks that bring me most of my results.
Eliminate
Another thing you can do is eliminate the task. In my first job, part of the work process included writing a very thorough report about the candidate. This took a lot of time, and to be honest, the clients didn’t really care so much; they never read it through. So in my second job, when I was responsible for engineering the processes myself, I eliminated it. No more reports. We just talked to the client directly, and this was the most effective.
Automate
Another thing you can do is automate tasks. With the rise of artificial intelligence-supported tools, you can for example use a tool to automatically input your data. Here’s what I do at work (this isn’t full automation): eventually candidates and clients are asking me the same questions. So, I’ve created templates, and I can quickly take a template, plop it in an email, adjust it a little bit, and then I save a ton of time and move on to more critical tasks. We just answered the questions: What are the key tasks that drive your results? And how can you spend more time focusing on these tasks?
When Should You Carry out Certain Tasks for Best Results?
Now we come to the question, when should you carry out certain tasks so that you generate the best results, the highest quality work, and can save the most time?
To answer this question, it’s helpful to know our body’s natural cycles. Our body has rhythms, and these are cycles from about 90 to 120 minutes in which our bodies move from a high-energy state gradually to a low-energy state. Before reaching that low point, you want to take a break or eat a healthy snack so that you get an energy boost again, and your body can recover.
But when you are at your highest, and this is different for different people, some of us are really productive first thing in the morning, while others are in the afternoon or are night owls. When you are at your highest peak regarding your energy, then schedule tasks that require the most concentration, focus, and creativity.
When you conduct these tasks at such a high point, your quality and results will be better. And when you’re moving down and hitting the low energy area of the day, then you can schedule tasks that don’t require as much concentration.
Time Block
One tool that I use to help me with this is called time blocking. Pretty much, what you want to do is schedule times when you want to carry out particular tasks and put them in your calendar, in your online calendar, so that you don’t lose track and can work in a very focused and concentrated way.
Bundle Tasks
Another thing to consider is bundling tasks. For example, don’t just answer emails as they trickle in. If you’re working on something and an email pops up, don’t stop what you’re doing to answer it. That is a really inefficient use of your time.
Tasks that are the same or similar in nature, bundle them and finish them. Carry them out in one block. Set one or two times a day when you answer all of your emails at once. If you think about it, you waste a lot of cognitive resources by switching between tasks. If you bundle these kinds of tasks, you won’t get tired as quickly. And so that answers the question of when.
How Should You Carry Out Tasks for Best Results
Now, let’s come to the question of how. How do you carry out your task in a way that is most efficient, effective, and brings you the best results?
For example, in sports, you might face an opponent who’s bigger and stronger, but if your technique is superior, you will win almost every time. This is a question of how you conduct your task methodically. Don’t just carry out tasks randomly just to get them done. Think critically about how you’re doing it.
Is this really the best way? Is this really a way that will have the best output with the minimum effort? So for me, of course, I have to contact potential candidates. One strategy is to use the same message and contact as many as you can using the same message. But when people receive these messages, they’re not very impressed. They know you didn’t spend time to really consider their profile and needs, and they probably won’t respond.
Another strategy is to completely personalize every message 100%. This is nice, and it takes a lot of time to do, but what we’ve noticed is that if you’re contacting a small group and none of them are interested, you’re still not going to gain the candidates you need to present to the client. So I realized, okay, we need some more variety.
For us, in our situation, the most effective way to do this is to have a standardized message with some personalized elements. This way, we get the best results. Candidates realize we have a genuine interest in them, and at the same time, we have enough candidates that we can choose from.
Example: How to Answer an E-Mail in the Best Way
Most of us in our jobs have to answer emails. So consider, how am I answering an email? We know that using one email to handle one topic is the most effective. If you have multiple things in your email that you’re trying to communicate, then the person receiving won’t have the desire to make their way through your entire message to get the information they need.
So, for example, when writing an email, just address one topic at a time. After every few sentences, use some space and make sure there is enough white space that makes it easier to read. Use bullet points when summarizing information; this helps the other person comprehend what you’re writing more quickly.
In this way, you don’t go back and forth, losing time trying to gain clarity because you’re clear from the beginning. Another thing to consider is whether it’s most effective to use email or to give a phone call or go directly to the other person. In some cases its better to clarify things face to face.
Summary
Consider all these things, and go about your tasks methodically in the best way so that ultimately you achieve the best results. So now, just a short review: we answered the questions, “What are the top 20% of your tasks that drive 80% of your results?” “When should you do these tasks so that you generate the best results?” and “How should you do them so that the quality is the best?”
If you constantly practice and apply the Pareto Principle, you will save time, have more time for the things you care about, and your work quality will be better. Additionally, you won’t be as tired and worn out at the end of your workday. Thanks for watching this video; if you would like more content, please come back to the channel.
Also, if you’re interested in one-on-one coaching, I am available and have a little bit of capacity to help you with that. All the information is available on my website. Thank you for watching this video, and I hope to see you again.
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