Focus on the Vital Few for Better Outcomes

Productivity isn’t necessarily about how many things you get done every day, but rather how many of the right things — the things that add the most value to your customers and your business — that you accomplish. Considered in a slightly different way, sometimes what you don’t do is just (or more) important than what you do!

The reality is that we live in a world where almost everything is worthless, and a very few things are exceptionally valuable. Some things we do yield very little benefit, while others produce huge results. The whole concept of differentiating the “trivial many” from the “vital few,” prioritizing those few projects or tasks that truly will make a difference is both challenging and refreshing. It forces us to identify and focus on those things that are essential, eliminating or deferring those that are non-essential, and then committing the time and other resources to accomplishing those that are truly beneficial and of significant import.

I think there are a few things we can all agree on:

• We never have enough resources (time, money, energy, effort) to accomplish everything we want or need to
• We can never finish everything we have on our to-do lists.

It’s human nature to focus our attention on the things where we don’t have to invest a lot of resources, just to say we’ve accomplished something. And it’s the same thing with our to do list — we tend to go to the simplest tasks on the list, the low-hanging fruit, because we like the sense of accomplishment that we get from scratching the item off the list. But is this the most effective use of your limited resources, and will this give you the results you want and need?

Back in 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto identified that 80% of the wealth of his country was controlled by just 20% of the people. Using these findings as the basis for further study, Joseph Juran, an innovator of the Total Quality movement and the Six Sigma concept, published a universal principle in his 1951 book, “The Quality Control Handbook,” that he called the “vital few and trivial many.” Juran’s observation was that, in almost everything, a few (20%) are vital and many (80%) are trivial, a concept now widely known as the Pareto principle.

Given all of the rapid changes and increasing distractions organizations face today, individuals must be able to focus on those things that offer the greatest advantage to the organization. The clearer the priorities, the easier it will be for people to focus their energies on what really counts.

First and foremost is identifying which results are most important to you, both personally and professionally, and recognize those activities that are more vital than trivial. Some might simply call this a prioritization process, but it really goes deeper than that.

As a leader, for example, of all the things you do, only 20% really matter, and these produce 80% of your results. Identify and focus on this 20%, and when the fire drills of the day begin to sap your time, remind yourself of the 20% you need to keep focus on. If something on your schedule or to-do list has to slip, if something isn’t going to get done, make sure it’s not part of that 20%.

The Pareto principle isn’t an ironclad law or a panacea for success, but it is an excellent tool to help keep you focused on the things that are the most productive and beneficial that offer the highest paybacks and returns and driving your resource investment strategy.

You can’t do everything. So, you have to focus. Since you can’t do everything and if you ever could, your customers wouldn’t believe you anyhow, then you need to focus on something that you do well, that people want.

You get results based on the things you focus on most intently. Regardless of how many things you want to accomplish, you must focus on the most important and let other things — which in the right context may be very good things — go by the wayside.

Pareto's Principle, the 80/20 Rule, should serve as a daily reminder to focus 80 percent of your time and energy on the 20 percent of your work that is really important. Don't just "work smart", work smart on the right things.

If everything is important, then nothing is important. Do fewer but better things. Because the person who tries to achieve everything ultimately accomplishes nothing. Focus. Focus. Focus.