How to Apply the 80/20 Principle
The 80/20 principle says: a few things create most results. In business, leadership, and life, your job is to find that “powerful 20%” and double it.
Core idea: 80% of results come from 20% of efforts. A small number of actions, clients, workers, or decisions create most of your success (or your problems).
What is the 80/20 Principle?
The 80/20 principle (Pareto rule) means results are not equal to effort. You don’t get 1 unit of result for 1 unit of work.
Your goal as a leader is to identify these small groups that create big impact.
Why it’s Powerful for Leaders
- Save time: Less busy work, more impact work.
- Grow profit: Focus on best clients and best projects.
- Reduce stress: Cut low-value tasks and noise.
- Stronger team: Support your top performers and key roles.
Success is not “doing more”. It is doing more of what truly matters.
Simple SOP: 3 Steps to Apply 80/20
Use this mini SOP for your business, your work, and your personal life.
Ask: “Which few things create most of my results?” Look at clients, workers, tasks, products, and problems.
Give more time, attention, and resources to these high-impact 20% actions, people, and projects.
Stop, reduce, or delegate tasks that bring little result but consume energy and time.
Key sentence: “I shift energy from low-value to high-value work.”
Examples in Construction Business & Life
| Area | High-Impact 20% | Low-Value 80% |
|---|---|---|
| Clients | A few clients who pay on time, give big projects, and trust you. | Many small clients who delay payment, argue price, and waste time. |
| Workers | Strong core team who are responsible, on time, and care about quality. | Workers who always come late, complain, and need repeating orders. |
| Tasks | Planning, checking drawings, quality inspection, client updates. | Unplanned meetings, unnecessary changes, phone scrolling, gossip. |
| Learning | Reading a few key books and applying them (leadership, finance). | Watching random videos without action. |
| Personal life | Time with family, health, sleep, deep thinking. | Arguing, social media, saying “yes” to everything. |
Daily Practice: 3 Questions
Morning Choose your top 20%
- Ask: “If I only finish 1–2 tasks today, which ones will move my life or business forward the most?”
During the day Avoid the low 80%
- When someone asks you to do something, ask: “Is this really important, or just urgent noise?”
Evening Short review
- “Did I spend more time on my top 20% or on distractions?”
- “What can I cut or delegate tomorrow?”
Quick Self-Check for Leaders
Check yourself once a week:
- Do I know who my top 20% clients are?
- Do I know who my top 20% workers are?
- Do I protect time for planning and thinking?
- Have I said “no” to at least one low-value activity this week?
- Is my calendar full of important work or only urgent fire-fighting?
Small weekly adjustments can completely change your long-term results.
Summary: The 80/20 principle is not a theory. It is a daily decision: protect what matters most and gently remove what doesn’t. Fewer but better actions → bigger results.