The Pareto Principle, use it!
I’d be surprised if you hadn’t heard about the Pareto Principle before. It’s the theory that 20% of the effort achieves 80% of the results. It can be applied from many different angles but I want to talk about work efficiency today. So, 20% of the work you do, achieves 80% of the results.
I constantly see small business people rushing around doing the menial tasks that won’t improve their business. Sure, the floor may need to be swept, but is it really contributing to your sales? Then they ignore the tasks that are more long term, business growing necessities. For some reason it’s in their head that the unimportant daily things need doing now, while the really important tasks like planning and marketing can be put off till tomorrow.
Just because it doesn’t have a deadline, doesn’t mean it isn’t important. And by focusing on these more important tasks, even a little bit each day, you can grow your business at an incredible rate. Plus, you’re the boss, you should be putting deadlines on yourself to get these things sorted.
Now I can hear you saying, “but the floor needs to be swept too!” Yes, fair enough. But does it need to be done right now. If you have a choice of sweeping the floor or sending five emails to potential customers, what is more important? So send the emails (that was the correct answer by the way), then sweep the floor. If it doesn’t get done today, will it kill your business? If you don’t have any more customers, that will kill your business.
So go through your daily task list (please tell me you have one) and work out what are the most important things to do. Prioritise them and carry them out in the correct order.
That’s how you take care of the 20% that will grow your business. Use the Pareto Principle to your advantage, not to your detriment.
