Good, could have been alot shorter. Meh. Quotes: "The 80/20 Principle asserts that a minority of cause, input, or effort usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs, or rewards." "The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower productivity into an area of higher productivity." [J-B Say:] "Celebrate exceptional productivity, rather than raise average efforts. Look for the short cut, rather than run the full course. Exercise control over our lives with the least possible effort. Be selective, not exhaustive. Strive for excellence in few things, rather than good performance in many. Delegate or outsource as much as possible in our daily lives and be encouraged rather than penalized by tax systems to do this (use gardeners, car mechanics, decorators, and other specialists to the maximum, instead of doing the work ourselves). Choose our careers and employers with extraordinary care, and if possible employ others rather than being employed ourselves. Only do the thing we are best at doing and enjoy most. Look beneath the normal texture of life to uncover ironies and oddities. In every important sphere, work out where 20 percent of effort can lead to 80 percent of returns. Calm down, work less and target a limited number of very valuable goals where the 80/20 Principle will work for us, rather than pursuing every available opportunity. Make the most of those few "lucky streaks" in our life where we are at our creative peak and the stars line up to guarantee success." "We tend to assume that our organizations, and our industries, are doing pretty much the best they can. We tend to think that our business world is highly competitive and has reached some sort of equilibrium or endgame. Nothing could be further from the truth."
Worth rereading
"Simplification, through elimination of unprofitable activity; focus, on a few key drivers of improvements; and comparison of performance."
"Important as focus on the few best products is, it is much less important than focusing on the few best customers."
"The doctrine of the vital few and the trivial many: there are only a few things that ever produce important results. Most efforts do not realize their intended results. What you see is generally not what you get: there are subterranean forces at work. It is usually too complicated and too wearisome to work out what is happening and it is also unnecessary: all you need to know is whether something is working or not and change the mix until it is; then keep the mix constant until stop working. Most good events happen because a small minority of highly productive forces; most bad things happen because of a small minority of highly destructive forces. Most activity, en masse and individuality, is a waste of time. It will not contribute materially to desired results."
"Rule one says that not many decisions are very important. Rule two affirms that the most important decisions are often those made only by default. Rule three: gather 80% of the date and perform 80 percent of the relevant analyses in the first 20 percent of the time available, then make a decision 100 percent of the time and act decisively as if you were 100 percent confident that the decision is right. Fourth, if what you have decided isn't working, change your mind early rather than late. Fifth: when something is working well, double and redouble your bets."
"Impose an impossible time scale: This will ensure that the project team does only the really high-value tasks."
"What is working well when it shouldn't or at least was not intended to? What are we unintentionally providing to customers that for some reason they seem to appreciate greatly?"
"Like individual entrepreneurs, the free markets shift resources out of areas of lower productivity into areas of higher productivity and yield. But neither markets nor entrepreneurs, let alone today's overcomplex corporate or government bureaucracies, do this well enough. There is always a tail of waste, usually a very long tail, where 80 percent of resources are producing only 20 percent of value. This always creates arbitrage opportunities for genuine entrepreneurs. he scope for entrepreneurial arbitrage is always underestimated."
"If you are unhappy, do not worry about the proximate cause. Think about the times you have been happy and maneuver yourself into similar situations. If your career is going nowhere, do not tinker around at the edges seeking incremental improvements: a bigger office, a more expensive car, a grander-sounding title, fewer working hours, a more understanding boss. Think about the few, most important achievements that are yours in your whole life and seek more of the same, if necessary switching jobs or even careers."
"You are hugely more productive at some things than at others, but dilute the effectiveness of this by dong too many things where your comparative skill is nowhere near as great."
"Most of our failures are in races for which others enter us. Most of our successes come from races we ourselves want to enter. We fail to win most races because we enter too many of the wrong ones: their races, not ours."
"What we must do is to plant firmly in our minds that hard work, especially for somebody else, is not an efficient way to achieve what we want. Hard work leads to low returns. Insight and doing what we ourselves want lead to high returns."
"Those who achieve the most have to enjoy what they do. It is only by fulfilling oneself that anything of extraordinary value can be created."
"Top 10 low-value uses of time:
1. Things other people want you to do
2. Things that have always been done this way
3. Things you're not usually good at doing
4. Things you don't enjoy doing
5. Things that are always interrupted
6. Things few other people are interested in
7. Things that have already taken twice as long as you originally expected
8. Things where your collaborators are unreliable or low quality
9. Things that have a predictable cycle
10. Answering the telephone
[11. Email:]"
"Top 10 highest-value uses of time:
1. Things that advance your overall purpose in life
2. Things you have always wanted to do
3. Things already in the 20/80 relationship of time to results
4. Innovative ways of doing things that promise to slash the time required and/or multiply the quality of results
5. Things other people tell you can't be done
6. Things other people have done successfully in a different arena
7. Things that use your own creativity
8. Things that you can get other people to do for you with relatively little effort on your part
9. Anything with high-quality collaborators who have already transcended the 80/20 rule of time, who use time eccentrically and effectively
10. Things for which it is now or never"
"Work out what you want from life."
"10 golden rules for career success:
1. Specialize in a very small niche; develop a core skill
2. Choose a niche that you enjoy, where you can excel and stand a chance of becoming an acknowledged leader
3. Realize that knowledge is power
4. Identify your market and core customers and serve them best
5. Identify where 20 percent of effort gives 80 percent of returns
6. Learn from the best
7. Become self-employed early in your career
8. Employ as many net value creators as possible
9. Use outside contractors for everything but your core skill
10. Exploit capital leverage"
"Specialize in an area in which you are already interested and which you enjoy. You will not become an acknowledged leader in anything that cannot command your enthusiasm and passion."
"Radical simplification disturbs vested interests (not least, those of the managers in charge themselves), creates disruptive change, and requires everyone to be both accountable and useful. Most people prefer life to be quite, stable, and unaccountable."
