Melinda F’s BodyBlog

Just a fancy name for the 80/20 principle but wow did this strike home with me many years ago and maybe it will help you too..

80% of traffic jams occur on 20% of the roads.

80% of beer is consumed by 20% of drinkers.

80% of classroom participation comes from 20% of the students.

80% of the time you wear 20% of your clothes.

80% of the profits come from only 20% of the customers.

80% of problems are generated by 20% of the employees.

80% of sales are generated by 20% of the salespeople.

80% of decisions can be made on 20% of the information.

So in other words 20% of all my activities were sixteen times more productive than the remaining 80%. So if I wanted to increase productivity and decrease the complexity of my life I needed to focus on the 20% of my activities that were working already.

What does this mean for you?  Evaluate the way you are spending your time and prioritize your schedule. So ask yourself - what gives me the greatest return? What is most rewarding? and What is required of me to make it a blast? For most like myself these answers change with time, being in my 30’s has a different sense of evaluation as opposed to 10 years ago - so constant re-evalution is necessary. For me this comes with the realisation that the purpose of all work is results. If I wanted to accomplish my goals and be productive then I needed structure, systems,planning, intelligence and honest purpose. I also had to find my passions and indulge them - I love lifting so I structured that into my lifestyle, no excuses, written in, time dedicated to it as if it were like reporting for a job that I loved, but my goals were not just to lift it was also to build lean muscle, keep bodyfat low and so I structured, planned and prepared nutrition and how I would eat, no excuses, written in, time dedicated to preparation.In business I came to appreciate delegating, that things couldnt only work if I did them , trust my staff to a reasonable extent within their limits. I love my children incredibly and yes I structure time in for them everyday as well, just to listen how their day was.. They say that half of being smart is knowing what you’re dumb at - I find that saying a bit course but it does have some truths, know your strengths and weaknesses - if you know chocolate is your weakness - dont buy it and say ‘well I’ll keep this for a cheat day’because you will inevitably eat it before,  if you have no self control or if your hormones act up, best to go out and buy it on your cheat day - structure your gym time like it is not negotiable, like breathing. 10 minutes to throw a ball is great quality in the eyes of a six year old.

I strive to stay with my strength in many aspects, I am inspired by leaders so I read everything and anything that will keep the inspiration tank filled up, I like to do things with excellence using my full concentration because that is one of my strengths - the ability to focus in.

The most revealing discovery was that effective leaders have an acute sense of their own strengths and weakness. They know who they are - and who they are not. They dont try to be all things to all people( I had to work real hard on this one and have come really far) Their personalities are indistinguishable between work and home. They are genuine. It is in this absence of pretense that helps them connect to others so well. Genuis is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple.

So I try to apply this to my life in most aspects and work on it everyday - we dont need to become masters of theories but we do need to try to apply them to our lives in order to see the results we desire and we do need to learn from each other as there is no better teacher than experience itself.

Dont put your day in the hands of others - create your own magnificent day… 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 10:18 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.