What Actually Moves the Needle?
The Pareto Principle states that 80% of results comes from 20% of the effort. In other words, a small set of actions usually drives the majority of outcomes. When you focus on that critical 20%, you get most of the value in far less time. Beyond that, returns quickly start to diminish.
Knowing this is important when deciding what to prioritize and what to ignore. It is best to prioritize the 20% that leads to 80% of the output first. In many cases, the rest can safely be ignored.
I experienced this recently at work during a CRM migration. We had exported our data from one system to another, but some customer notes weren’t carried over. My colleagues and I had to double-check and move over anything that wasn’t migrated from our accounts.
My colleagues finished this task within a few days. But it was taking me more than a week. When I asked how they finished so quickly, one colleague told me she only reviewed notes from the past year. That was when I realized my approach was wrong.
Not all notes were equally valuable. What mattered were notes from important meetings—context that helped us understand the customer relationship and the bigger picture. What didn’t matter were old notes or administrative updates that were no longer relevant. Those took time to copy but added very little value.
The real objective wasn’t preserving every piece of information. It was enabling better conversations with customers today, and having enough context to move relationships forward without getting lost in unnecessary details.
That’s the Pareto Principle in action. Identify the small set of inputs that drive the majority of outcomes, and start there. Everything else is optional.
Food for Thought
I first heard about the Pareto Principle when I read The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss for the first time in my early 20s. Despite its gimmicky title, it’s one of the few books whose lessons have continued to serve me, not least of which is the Pareto Principle.
In one video on how to become dramatically more productive, he emphasizes that getting better at asking questions is key. The implication is that asking better questions helps you identify the critical 20% faster.