Find Business Success – Change the 80/20 Rule and Eliminate Distractions

What is the traditional approach for trying to get focused in business? It is the Pareto principle, commonly called the 80/20 rule, meaning that 20 percent of the effort or activity is always responsible for 80 percent of the results.

It’s absolutely ludicrous and out of date. Pareto’s not around anymore. The principle has already been updated once, by Dr. Edwards Deming. He took a little company called Toyota and made it into the world’s biggest auto company. Deming said it’s 85/15.

But we think there’s another upgrade to that. We think we need to take it to 99/1.

A 1 percent focus will produce 99 percent of the results.

You know, the beautiful thing about focusing on 1 percent with 99 percent results is that you can take 99 percent of your time off!

An article in the Harvard Business Review stated that 10 percent of the managers these researchers had studied over several years across the world were driving 90 percent of the results at their organizations.

These are the managers who understand the principle and have focus!

These managers were focused and had the energy to see their projects through to completion.

Just think of the impact. If you could double 10 percent of the managers to 20 percent, what could you do to your productivity? If you could take it to 30 percent, 40 percent, or 50 percent, think what you could do inside your organization.

The concept is simple: You get more by doing less.

No Distractions
One thing is critical to achieving focus in your life. You must protect yourself from distractions.

You must protect yourself from distractions

One of the most powerful things I did in my life was move to Singapore. I moved to Singapore because it is one of the few places in the world where I don’t have a company.

Arranging the move was a really amazing process. I met with local lawyers. I said, “I want to move to Singapore.” They said, “No problem.” I said, “I need to get a visa.” “No problem.” I said, “Here’s the thing: I don’t want to work in Singapore.” They said, “That’s a big problem. There aren’t any visas for just being here.” So we set up a company to sponsor my visa.

But by living in a place where I have no companies and no office, I am free from everyday business distractions. So I can focus on the things that are actually going to have a big WOW impact at the end of the year.