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because you feel obligated.
3. Now go down that column again and look for the items
you didn t cross off. Copy them into the column on the
right. THOSE are the things you should be spending the
majority of your time on.
Your task is to start arranging your life so your reality comes closer
and closer to matching the map you just drew.
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Master the 80/20 Way
I ve been able to apply these 80/20 ideas to both my writing and
my lifestyle. I ll give you a few examples. And I ll try to pick stuff
that isn t obvious, because you ll find the easy ones straight away
when you do the exercise.
80/20 APPLIES TO WORK
Koch writes that the trick to getting more with less is to focus on
activities that give you a higher reward for less energy. In nearly
all cases, these are the activities you really excel at.
I m lucky in that I have a business partner in my online company
his name is Adam with opposite strengths and weaknesses. He
doesn t mind the tasks I absolutely hate, and vice versa. Same for
the stuff we re each good at. And when we both suck at something
or loathe it, we delegate it or hire it out. But we didn t figure this
out until we actually sat down and did the exercise I outlined
above. The results surprised us both.
It makes working much more enjoyable. And it means I have a lot
more free time to focus on the things that give me the greatest
enjoyment in life: travel, reading books, writing, etc.
This approach also makes you a lot more innovative. By deliberately
cutting back on what you put into a task AND asking for more in
terms of results, you force yourself to get creative. You ve gotta
come up with a new or better way of doing something.
The same goes for your home life, and anything else you regard
as work. I hired a cleaner this year because my wife and I were
tired of spending half a day every weekend doing mundane tasks.
I consider it money well spent. It also works out in terms of cost/
benefit, because I can generate a lot more money by using that
same time to create something instead.
Not sure where to start? Try writing a not to do list. That ll help
you focus on those tasks only you can do, because they require
your unique talents. Those are your money tasks. Remember:
it s all about focusing that best 20% of your efforts.
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Master the 80/20 Way
80/20 APPLIES TO PEOPLE
Have you noticed that the people in your life also fall into the
80/20 equation?
What s the 80%? Those people whose phone calls you dodge because
you really don t enjoy talking to them. Those relationships that
are entirely one way the energy vampires who monopolize your
time and drain you. All those people you spend time with out of
a sheer sense of obligation or guilt, or because you used to have
something in common.
Don t judge them. Just let them go. There s nothing callous in
this. You ve simply grown in different directions, and you honour
that person by allowing them to move on.
That might mean editing your Facebook friend list. Having a
difficult but necessary conversation. Or simply allowing yourself
to fall out of touch. Want to go cold turkey in a hurry? Change
your phone number and/or replace your mobile phone SIM card.
Four people in the world have my phone number, including my
wife. I communicate with everyone else by email, and that s easy
to prioritize.
Spend your time with those people who excite you and who
encourage you to grow in new directions. If your life is too
crowded, you ll never have a chance to let new people in.
80/20 APPLIES TO APPLIANCES
Yeah, that wasn t a typo. I wrote appliances. But it s really a
general category for the things you surround yourself with.
How much of the stuff you surround yourself with barely works?
How much did you buy because it was cheap? And how much time
and grief does that cost you each day?
I ll give you an example. I used to have this digital alarm clock.
I think my parents gave it to me. They must have, because it
sat on my dresser all through high school, and it followed me to
university.
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Master the 80/20 Way
Now there was nothing particularly wrong with this clock when it
came to telling the time. It was functional, it didn t take up much
space. And most of the time I never noticed it. Except when I had
to switch off the alarm in the morning.
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