The 80/20 rule is also called the Pareto Principle. It states that 80 percent of your major achievements are accomplished in just 20 percent of your time. The rule works when you, in fact, spend 20 percent of your time
doing what counts—doing activities with the highest value for your business. You have to decide what those are for you—I say they are revenue producing activities like working with clients and talking to prospective clients.
If the 80/20 rule is true, we should have all the time we need to accomplish what is most important for us. So why aren’t women in business thriving? Because most of us spend too much time on less important activities. We are often too busy with insignificant tasks that the time allotted to the most important activities is cut short.
Be strategic about how you spend your time. Remember, effort does not automatically produce results. In fact, hard work may have a negative effect on productivity since hard work depletes your energy and erodes your enthusiasm. In your business focus on doing those things that only you can do. Leave the rest for your team. Don’t have a team? Time to get one—no business can grow without one. Plus when you have a team you are freed up to do those revenue-producing things that only you can do.
Begin to focus each day on those things that provide the most value to your business. Begin to see what are you spending time on that is not serving your business. Begin to see where you can create a system on a process that you can document so someone else can do it.
For one week track your time, what are you doing and for how long? Keep a log and at the end of the week see where you are spending your time. The log will not lie. See how much time you are spending on things that are accelerating your business and how much time you are spending on insignificant things that others can do. By concentrating on these activities, you will be spending time on the 20 percent that produces 80 percent of your results and your business will thrive even more.