Have you heard of the 80/20 rule?  Likely you have.  Also known as the Pareto Principle, it is the concept that 80% of the effect comes from 20% of the causes. This can then be applied into many areas of life.  The phenomenon was originally observed in Italy, where 20% of the people had 80% of the wealth.  Since then it has become a rule of thumb for business.  The numbers are not exact, it is not a scientific proof, but the trend is general and consistent; consistent enough that people are able to use it to guide them into making their business more effective.

Examples of where it might be used include:

• 80% of an organization’s sales will come from 20% of their salespeople
• 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers
• 80% of your investment income will come from 20% of your investment

You can also look at things from the opposite perspective:

• 20% of your customers will cause 80% of your headaches
• you wear 20% of your clothing, 80% of the time
• 20% of patients use 80% of healthcare resources
• the final 20% of your workout will provide 80% of the results

And of course the list goes on and on.  There are lots of ways that the Pareto Principle can be used to help you be more successful.  This article will focus on one of those.

20% of your activities will produce 80% of your results!

Think about that for a moment.  Out of all of the things you do, 1/5 th of your activity is what creates 4/5 ths of your value.  That is pretty significant.  Again, you can reverse the concept.  Only 80% of your activity accomplishes only 20% of your results.  This leads to an obvious question:

How can you do more of the activities that are really producing results?

If you can take those high-result activities that you currently spend 20% of your time on, and increase the amount of time you spend on them, you can make yourself more effective and accomplish even more. Imagine if, instead of taking 20% of your time on these high results activities, you were able to increase that to 30% or even 40%.  Your results would skyrocket.  You would be getting a lot more important things accomplished.

What are your 20% activities?

The first step in doing this is to identify what your 20% activities are.  What are the activities that produce the most results in your life and business?  What are the activities that help you move more quickly towards your goals?  The list of activities will differ significantly between different goals and businesses.

For someone in sales the 20% activities might be:

• phoning new prospects
• following up with current prospects
• making sales presentations

Things that are not in the top 20% are likely:

• updating your contact list
• cleaning your office
• analyzing your competitors products

If you are a blogger the 20% activities might be:

• writing new articles
• writing guest posts
• commenting on other blogs

Things that are not in the top 20% are likely:

• making continual search engine optimization changes
• focusing on web design
• playing with fancy new online tools

You can’t completely ignore the 80% activities.

The 80% activities will never go away.  In fact, you can’t stop doing them.  Often they provide a foundation for making the 20% activities so successful. The fact that you understand your customer’s products DOES make your sales calls more effective.  The search engine optimization you have done allows your articles to reach more people.  These activities are useful and you still need to build them into your day.

You just want to REDUCE the amount of time you spend on them.

Take the time to make your list.  What are your 20% activities? Those activities that produce most of the results as you work towards your goals. The list might surprise you.  How are you at doing these activities?  Are there ways you can do more?  Even putting in a little more time into the activities that pay off the most can allow you to reap huge benefits.  On the flip side, what falls into your 80% activities?  What are the activities that, while useful, are only contributing 20% of your results?  Identifying this list will help you see patterns.  You will be able to see what you can cut back on and where you can shift time away from.
Do it today.  Make your list. It likely won’t get it exactly right the first time, but start with a list in hand.  Use that list to plan your week.  After your week review your list again.  Make any changes you need until you are sure you have your list right.  You may even want to log your time, recording what you do in each fifteen minute segment.  Know what your 20% activities are, and then do more of them!

Written by:

Danny Gamache –The Success Professor

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As the number of miles that people fly continues to increase, understanding how to make the most of your travel days is becoming increasingly important.  It is possible to be very productive, even on a long day of flying. Last week, I had two very long days of flying.  I flew from my home in Saskatchewan, Canada to Orlando, Florida and back.  Each trip involved two flights totaling over five hours in the plane plus layover in between.  By doing many of the activities below, I was able to productively use my time.

Some things to remember:

• you have time after security but before you get on the plane
• once you are on the plane you have time before and during takeoff where some electronic tools are not available (same during landing)
• you have time during a layover, but be prepared to spend some time finding the correct gate
• things change and flights get delayed, if you are prepared you can still use time wisely, even when delayed
• you are not in control – understand that unless you are the President flying on Air Force One you don’t determine when a plane can or can’t fly.  Don’t get mad or upset over things you can’t control

Plan your work:

Just like any day in the office, the first step to being productive on a travel day is to plan out your work. Know what your priorities and goals are. Without planning your work, you won’t get as much value out of your trip as you could. Don’t go overboard, instead list three or four things that you hope to get done on the trip, and put them in order of importance.

Now, here are some things you can do that will keep you productive on a long day of flying:

1. Catch up on Emails - Catching up on your email and aiming for “inbox zero” can be a great use of traveling time.  Gary Vaynerchuk often mentions using his flights to respond to all of his emails.  Many email readers are full accessible offline, and now even online email browsers such as Gmail are now available to be used in offline mode.

photo by: dreemreeper

2. Read - Another valuable and popular thing to do on a flight or in airports is to read.  I love taking a book that I can read quickly and easily while flying. On overseas flights I often set a goal of reading an entire book before the end of the flight.  In fact many times I have started a book after going through security at my departure airport and finished before landing.  It is very rewarding to complete a book, front to back, in that time frame. (My top 10 books are here). You can also read magazine articles.  I have found it useful to rip out the articles from a magazine that I want to read.  I then put them in a folder and take only the articles that I’m going to read with me, instead of the full magazine.

3. Meet people – It is amazing how connecting with a few people over the course of a day of travel can help you grow your network and possibly get you some referrals for your business.  You don’t have to spend all flight talking to someone to build a connection.  I look to visit with the person sitting next to me for a few minutes during takeoff – small talk – and a few minutes as we land and are taxing to the gate.  I use the landing time to see if there is a potential business relationship, or if they can give me any referrals.

4. Listen to podcasts – Traveling is a great time to listen to podcasts. I often put several of my favorite podcasts on my iPod for the day.  While you can certainly listen after takeoff, I usually listen to podcasts in the airport as I move between gates or wait for my flight to leave.

5. Exercise – People don’t often think about being able to exercise on a travel day, however there are opportunities to do so.  Obviously during the flight you are pretty restricted, but if you have any layovers then you have an exercise opportunity. The concourses of airports often are expansive and have a long way between gates.  These are a great place to go for a walk; instead of standing on the moving sidewalk take the time to walk.  Even if your gate is close you can go further and walk around the airport (perhaps listening to a podcast while you do it).

6. Write blog posts or articles – If you have a blog or some other communication outlet you may want to use the time to write a post or article.  You can brainstorm and outline on paper and then pull out your laptop to write the post.  I will often try to write an article on days where I am flying.

7. Think – Travel days provide a great opportunity to spend some time thinking.  You may want to dream about your goals or think through a problem you are working on.  You may want to brainstorm ideas for you business, or consider some of your next projects that are coming up.  Make sure you have a notebook and pen so you can write down thoughts as they come to you. You may also want to put your headphones on, even without any music so that people are less likely to interrupt you.

8. Relax - You may also chose to use the travel day as a time to relax.  You are away from interruptions of the workplace, away from family, out of cell phone range, and simply have time by yourself.  Feel the freedom to use some of this time to relax; watch an in-flight movie or do a crossword or Soduko.  Give yourself some time to relax and recharge as you prepare for what is next on your agenda.

If you have a long day of travel with a long flight or multiple flights, you can be productive.  Plan your activities and use your time well.  You can get more done than you may think and put yourself ahead of the game for the rest of the week. It is worth it.

Written by:

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

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Last week, in my article “How Fatherhood Has Changed My Life” I mentioned that I’ve learned the importance of working in bursts.  A burst is when you take a short period of time and work full-out for that period of time.

Working in bursts is valuable for many reasons:

• you can make use of short periods of time that might otherwise not feel productive

• you can complete a short burst when your motivation is to low to start something bigger

• you can get  a lot done with focused energy

So how do you best work in bursts?  Here are some tips:

1. Have projects arranged

The only way you will be able to make use of a short burst is if you have your projects arranged in an easy to use system.  One way to do this is to use folders for each and every project you have that you are working on.  This is one of the most valuable things that I took out of Getting Things Done (see my review here).  By having each project in a folder you only need to have to one folder on your desk at a time that you can focus on.

2. Know the order of importance

Having your projects arranged is only half the battle; you need to know what order that they need to be accomplished.  Which project is the most important?  Doing a burst session on a low priority project might be valuable, but doing that same burst on your top priority project will allow you to excel.

There are many ways of establishing your order.  It can be as simple as a to-do list that you rank or it can be an elaborate process that is part of a full productivity system.  I use my weekly planning system to prioritize my products based on the goals I am pursing.

3. Have a clear workspace

The next step is to make sure you have a clear workspace.  Get rid of everything except the project that you are working on and any tools necessary to complete that project. If you have your projects arranged and set in individual folders you should have no need for a cluttered desk.

Having a clear workspace helps you to focus. You won’t be distracted by other things on your desk that vie for your attention.  You won’t be tempted to pause what you are doing to work on something else.  It also gives you the ability to spread out and organize yourself as you move forward on your project.

4. Turn off all distractions

The point of your burst period is to single task. You don’t want to be moving back and forward between tasks.  In order for you to do this you need to turn off all distractions.  The biggest distractions are often forms of communication.  Things such as email, telephones and Twitter can easily pull you away from the task at hand.  Closing your email box, web browser and putting your phone on silent will allow you to work without interruptions and get a lot more done.

If you work in a public place that is prone to interruptions put a “do not disturb” sign on your door or wear headphones to indicate that you are not to be interrupted.  This may take some time to train those around you but once they learn your policies it will be well worth it for you.

5. Have a pad of paper and pen off to the side

As you work away on your project, your mind will naturally tend to wander at times.  You’ll think of new ideas, projects that you could start, or things you need to do.  Having a pad and paper at your side will allow you to record your thoughts and return to your main project. Your mind will then forget about the thought and focus on the project. If you don’t write it down you’ll be tempted to take action towards what has come to mind, and your brain won’t be able to refocus on the project.

6. Go full out for a predetermined period of time

Once you have taken these steps you now need to work; work hard and steady for the time that you have set aside.  This is the essence of working in bursts.  Go full out, using all of your energy. If possible set yourself a time limit as to how long you will work.  Having a deadline for when you will stop working keeps you moving.  It also gives you something to look forward to.  So you’ll be both pushed to work harder during the time you have, but you will also be assured that a reward is coming when you are done that time.

Working in bursts is powerful.  It will allow you to get more done in a short period of time.  Perhaps you only have a short period of time.  It’s easy to put off meaningful activity because you “don’t have enough time.”   Instead you can do a burst of activity towards an important project.  Perhaps you don’t feel motivated to settle in and work.  Instead commit to working just a short time in a burst.  Often getting started like this with a burst will give you momentum to carry forward and keep working.

How can you apply bursts?  Take a minute right now and don’t leave this article without taking some action. Write down three priority activities that you can do in a burst period, and write down at least three different times of your day, or situations that you face, where a burst effort might be appropriate.  Now go and do it!

Written by:
The Success Professor – Danny Gamache (Follow me on Twitter: @successprof)

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I’ve been a dad for one month! Noah is growing and it is fascinating to watch him learn new things.  It’s also been fascinating to watch me learn new things about life, success, and achievement.

1. Work in Bursts

Life has gotten very busy.  Ok, that might be an understatement.  With a schedule that is significantly fuller, that is no longer under my control, and that is fairly unpredictable, the importance of being able to productively work in bursts has increased.

Often breaks between helping with Noah are only 30 or 45 minutes, or even less.  Thankfully this is enough time to work in bursts.  You can get a lot done in a short period of time if you focus in for that time.

Perhaps you are not being interrupted by a baby you need to help with but you likely have many short periods of time throughout the day that you can turn into a burst period. When do you have a burst that you can focus in on?

2. Know Your Priorities

Having a baby has made it more clear how important it is to know your priorities.  You can’t do everything in life, so you have to make decisions about what you do and what you don’t do.  When something gets added to your life, you need to give up some thing else. Too often people keep adding and adding things to their lives until they are juggling more than they can handle.

Clearly caring for Noah has become my new top priority.  That means projects like my affiliate home business, this blog, and other activities need to be selectively neglected for periods of time.  My focus has to be on being a good father and a good husband, because those are my priorities. What are your priorities?

3. Don’t Feel Guilty

One of the biggest challenges for me has been the guilty feeling that comes with this kind of selective neglect of some of these activities.  When life gets busy, it is easy to focus on what you aren’t doing, even if they are lower level priorities.  I’ve had to learn to release these guilty feelings and just do what I can do.  You don’t need to feel guilty about neglecting things that are not priorities. Is there something you feel guilty about not doing, that really isn’t that important anyway?

4. Be Flexible

I’m not known as a flexible individual.   I have a plan and like to stick to it.  One of the biggest changes is that I have learned to be flexible.  Having a plan, but being flexible has many advantages.  It allows you to be consistently making decisions based on your priorities. This way you are doing the things that are most important in the moment, instead of something predetermined in advance.  You will need to learn to make decisions that truly reflect your long-term priorities, but if you are able to do so you will have a much more mission driven life.  Are you flexible and able to make moment by moment decisions based on your priorities?

5. Enjoy the small things

Life is filled with small things. The beautiful day that you get to spend with friends, the family vacation, the rainy day with nothing to do but sit inside and read a book.  Whatever the little things are in your life you need to enjoy them. With a newborn the list of little things grows immensely.  It’s watching my son wake up from a sleep and stretch his little body making himself as long as possible; it’s the many “firsts” that we get to witness; and it’s the ability to lie on the coach and write this article with him sleeping on my chest.  What are the small things in your life?

Hopefully some of these will help you also.  What other lessons have you learned from life changes such as having a child?

Written by:
Danny Gamache
Follow me on Twitter: @Successprof
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Guest Post by Kris Rowlands from http://freshfocus.info

99.99% of us underestimate our own power. We underestimate how we can manifest and control our own destiny, as well as the effect that we can have on others.

In order for us to set our goals, plan them and accomplish them, we have to visualize them. You may not realize how or that you do this, but I can guarantee that you do. Without the visualization, we have cannot plan and carry out the steps that are required to reach our goals.

But when you first get that great idea, how do you visualize it? Do you think to yourself, “Oh, that’s going to be too hard”, “I can’t do it”, “I’m not good enough at _________ to be able to bring this to fruition”. Do you have millions of doubts that come flooding into your head? We all do. But what we also have the power to do is to change our thought patterns and visual things with a much more positive outcome.

We you think of your goals and your dreams, always (always) think of them in a positive light. The energy that you put forth in these first moments of thoughts sets the tone and path for the entire goal. If you have a slip up and start to let those doubts creep in, recognize it, alter it, and move forward. Allow yourself to believe in you and the power that you hold to control your own successes.

Create a ritual around this goal. Post it up on your computer, your mirror, the first thing you see in the morning (I don’t recommend taping it to your mates’ forehead, that might cause an issue), coffee cup or refrigerator. Tell as many people as you can about your goal. Have them help you in the facilitation of focusing positive energy to the goal. They can also help to hold you accountable for your progress and help you to stay on task. Create a mantra for yourself, and say it repeatedly several times a day. Make it your desktop wallpaper. Stick a post it note with your mantra on it on the rear view mirror of the car. Just the note caught in your peripheral vision will be enough to remind you of your goal and to say your mantra.

But do you also realize the power that you have towards other people when they see you doing this? You can and will inspire them to set a goal and be accountable for it. Then, the roles are reversed and you can support them as they go through their goals, pitfalls, and joys. Success is freaking contagious: you see one person doing it and you want to do it for yourself. And that is how the movers and shakers of this world support one another to be wildly successful.

So tell me – how do you visualize your success? Do you have a positive outlook on it or do those negative thoughts stop you from doing what you know you can do? What keys to your success can you share? I want to know. Tell me in the comments what rituals you have in place (or are going to put in place) to make yourself wildly successful!

Written by:
Kris Rowlands

Kris Rowlands is a Professional Productivity and Organization Consultant with over twenty five years of experience. Her life’s work has been devoted to getting people and corporations organized and productive as quickly as possible. You can find her on http://freshfocus.info She can be reached at coach@freshfocus,info for more information on productivity and organization consultations.

Hello everyone!

I’ve been taking care of a sick wife this week so I’ve been a little light on posts.  Thankfully my wife is feeling a lot better   and we should be back to a regular posting schedule this week.  I have come across a number of great articles lately so here are some articles for you to check out, as well as a couple of guest posts I had around the web.

1. CNN has an interesting article about entrepreneurs, featuring the inventor of the Segway and asking “when is it time to quit”.

2. Author Leo Babauta of Zen Habits has a great article called The Single Secret to Making 2009 Your Best Year Ever.

3. Pick the Brain shares the Foundations of Success.

4. Seth Godin challenges one aspect of Malcom Gladwell’s book Outliers (book link).

5. Mary Jaksch speaks to the way we use time in How to Make Life Spacious.
My guest posts:

At the blog Fresh Focus… On Productivity! I wrote about How to use RSS for Maximum Productivity

At Stepcase Lifehack, I write about How to Change Your Resume for a Great 2009.

Have a great week!

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

Hello everyone,
It has been a wonderful relaxing week with family, enjoying and celebrating Christmas.  I hope you have all had a great holiday season.  I’ve spent some enjoyable time browsing the net this week so here are a few of my favorite sites.

The blog Anywired shares about Origami Productivity.

Leadership expert John Maxwell writes an excellent article about perseverance.

Wired has a review of three different productivity books with one of my top 10 books coming out on top.

Pick The Brain compares life to a Jigsaw Puzzle.

Finally, Practical Hacks has 6 Simple Steps to Conquer Procrastination.
Have a great week!  Don’t forget to set goals for the week!

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

Recently, I shared with everyone my Top 10 Books.  At the time I mentioned that I was currently reading “Getting Things Done” by David Allen.  In the comments, Dave Jones, asked me to share my thoughts on the book when I finished.  This post will share my reflections on the book, as well as a few take home points that will help you become more productive.  Please be sure to share your experience with Getting Things Done (GTD) in the comments section below.

Reading and applying tips from GTD will make you more productive. The subtitle of the book is “The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”.  There are two claims in this: 1) You will be stress-free in your work, and 2) You will be more productive.   Obviously, both of these are very appealing thoughts.

The idea that you will be stress-free comes from Allen’s belief that if you have everything on your “to do” list written down and in a trusty system your subconscious mind will stop worrying about the task, stop reminding you about it, and allow your trusted system to go to work. While, I do see the system as a way to reduce stress, and help you relax more, the idea of being completely “stress free”, may be pushing it a bit.

The real strength of the book for me is in providing ways to increase productivity.  The book is designed specifically for knowledge workers; people whose primary work is to use, process, and share knowledge.  Chances are that if you primarily work in an office, you are a knowledge worker, and this book will help you be more productive.  For me, this would necessarily include all three of my major professional areas: being a professor, writing this blog, and building my home business.

The System

GTD is designed to be an entire system, not just a few activities. The system will allow you to take any activity, task, email/voice mail, or project and move it more quickly towards completion.  The system involves five major processes that every activity needs to go through.

1. Collect – writing down and recording everything you need to do.
2. Process – going through everything you have collected and determining whether it can be done quickly, or as part of a project, and then deciding to either do it, delegate it, or defer it until a later time.
3. Organize – taking the activities that you need to do and putting them into actionable lists and set projects.
4. Review – going through all of your lists and projects to ensure that you are doing what you need to do.
5. Do – taking action and getting things done.

Allen’s system comes with a thorough flow chart, and sub systems for each of these five processes to help you move through it efficiently and quickly while not dropping any of the activities you need to do.   The entire system will take significant time to set up and get used to.  You really need to set aside two full days after you have read the book to setup the system in your life.

Beyond the System

The good news is that you don’t need to use the entire system to get a lot out of this book. At this point, I have been implementing a number of elements of the system rather than the system as a whole.  This may change later, but at this point, there are some elements that can fit my life and that I know will make substantial differences in my productivity. When you are reading the book, be open to implementing the entire system, but also realize that you can start with one activity at a time and build up towards the systems he suggests.

Value for Me

Initially, the tips I learned while reading GTD made a bigger impact in my role as a professor than in my blog or business.  As I have gotten better at implementing these ideas in that setting they have now started to naturally carry over into my blog and business as well as other areas of life.  The following are five tips that I have already implemented and that have started to make improvements.  I will list and briefly explain the tips here.  Many of them will become full length articles over the next month or two.

1. Two Minute Policy – Allen suggests that whenever you are processing tasks to ask yourself if what you are looking at can be done in two minutes.  If it can, then do it.  This helps to prevent procrastinating on the small things.

2. Weekly Review – Each week you need to have a time of weekly review where you go through your lists and projects and make sure there are not any outgoing activities that you need to get done, and that all of your responsibilities are written down and set up in the correct part of your system.  This review goes great along with my weekly planning process.

3. Write Everything Down – Every activity that you agree to do needs to be written down.  Simply write it down on a piece of paper and put it in your in box for processing.  By writing everything down you won’t be worried about missing something that you have committed to doing.

4. Folders for Each Project – For each project you are involved in you need to have a folder.  That folder will allow you to place anything that you need for accomplishing that project.  Big projects will have several folders each representing a different aspect of that project.

5. Asking “What’s the Next Action?” – By asking this question of every project you have, you will always know what you need to do next.  Often this next step will be smaller than you had pictured, and may even fit within the two minute rule.  Also, ask this question at the end of every meeting you have, ensuring that all parties go away ready to make progress.

Reading Getting Things Done

“Getting Things Done” is certainly worth reading.  When you pick up the book, remember that it is not a quick read.  Much of the steps that Allen describes require that you take time to think through how that would fit in your life.  Make sure that you read with a highlighter in hand so that you can mark up key areas and return to them later.  Also, have a pad of paper and pen with you so you can write down ideas as you come to them.

One of the reasons it took me longer to read this book than others is that whenever I sat down to read I became inspired to go and get things done! I would sit down with the intention of reading for 30 minutes and would be up accomplishing something after about 10 minutes of reading.  Of course this is a very good thing!  The act of simply reading the book helped me to accomplish more.

This is also a book that you cannot just read once.  I will be returning to this book again in a few months to help me readjust the tools that I have put in place and reconsider ways that I should implement the system as a whole.  I know it will be something that will provide continued value for years to come.

Enjoy the book!

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

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