Focus on the 20% Because You Can Replace Lost Money But Not Lost Time

I define puttering as follows: "Unsystematic work that fills time without accomplishing much output." I define frittering as follows: "The refusal to take advantage of opportunities that have been placed in your hand."

Vilfredo Pareto in 1897 reported on land ownership in several European nations. About 20% of the inhabitants owned 80% of the land. Over the last century, investigators in many fields have noticed a similar distribution. About 20% of the officers in a police force make 80% of the arrests. About 20% of the clients of a company produce about 80% of the profits.

It turns out that the best way for a businessman to spend his time is the 20% of his hours in a day that produce 80% of his net income. It may not be easy to identify these activities, but for a successful career, a person must do this

What we find is that even when people do this, they do not have the self-discipline to ruthlessly abandon the 80%. They keep doing these low-return tasks. This may be pure habit. It may be a commitment to the ideal of perfectionism: to be sure that everything gets done right. The person refuses to decentralize and delegate. He cannot bring himself to let go. The result is that the person does not attain his maximum output/income.

Puttering is the same as perfectionism in this sense: the putterer does not prioritize his work. Neither does the perfectionist. The putterer works on lots of projects. He does a little here, a little there. He is not focused on the one project that needs to have the key 20% operating at 96% efficiency, and the key 1% operating at 99% efficiency. He does not have a time schedule. He does not have a schedule of priorities. He works a little on a major project, but then gets sidetracked on a minor project. The idea that some things can safely be delayed does not amaze him. He delays lots of things. But he has no sense of "first things first."

The putterer is busy. He is not lazy. He never stops working. But his output is unreliable. He is never sure how long it will take him to complete the most important projects. ...The putterer's great enemy is time. It gets away from him.

The fritterer cannot distinguish a unique opportunity from a poor one. He does not see that life brings some opportunities that are uniquely valuable. They will not come again. The fritterer thinks that life is a stream of opportunities. One is as good as another. There is no need to prioritize. There is no need to select one and concentrate on it to the exclusion of all others.The fritterer has a problem related to puttering. He lacks a sense of priorities.He misses opportunities. We say this: "He let the opportunity slip through his fingers." This is especially true of money. He cannot handle money. More important, he cannot handle time. Both "get away from him."n this life, entropy rules by default. Things get chaotic unless we actively intervene. It takes capital to reverse this regression to the mean: chaos. The fritterer does not perceive the power of entropy. He needs to pay attention. The friterrer's great enemy is money. It gets away from him. But time is also an enemy. It is easy to fritter away opportunities.

If it's puttering, then you must pay close attention to these issues: (1) your long-term goals, (2) your ability to prioritize them, (3) your ability to budget time, (4) your ability to review the output of your efforts in relation to your goals. You know that you must get a lot of things done. You don't know which have chronological priority.

If your problem is frittering, you must pay close attention to these issues: (1) your long-term goals, (2) your ability to prioritize them, (3) your ability to budget money, (4) your ability to review the output of your efforts in relation to your goals. You know that you must get a lot of things done. You don't know which have monetary priority.

Time and money are always in tension. There is a time cost of money and a money cost of time. The faster you want to accomplish something, the more you will have to pay. If you are short of money, you had better be long on time. This is the situation faced by youths. Old people face the reverse.

Time can get away from you. Money can get away from you. You can replace lost money. You cannot replace lost time.People forget how little time they have. When it comes to time, there's not more of that. When the account says "insufficient time," the process ends. It's not like "insufficient funds."

By Gary North