Can This Be True: Work Just One Day A Week And Earn $80,000 Yearly?
Why the promises of the 80/20 rule are a time management lie
In time management literature, you can often read that the Pareto principle says that you get 80% of the results with 20% of the effort. It sounds seductive, and that’s probably one reason this rule is cited so often.
Who doesn’t wish they could do that? Imagine you currently have an annual income of 100,000 USD and work 40 hours a week for it. Wouldn’t it be great to work only 8 hours a week and still earn 80,000 USD? But is this realistic? Just ask your boss whether he would go for it. Or, if you are self-employed: Do you think it’s really feasible to get for just 20% effort and 80% of the results?
The Pareto principle
What exactly does the Pareto principle say? Vilfredo Pareto, who lived from 1848–1923, gave the Pareto principle its name. It describes the statistical phenomenon that a small number of high values of a set of values contributes more to its total value than the high number of small values of this set.
Pareto came to this conclusion when he examined the distribution of land ownership in Italy in 1906. He found that about 20% of the population owned about 80% of the land. Later, he also studied income…
