The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less

How anyone can be more effective with less effort by learning how to identify and leverage the 80/20 principle--the well-known, unpublicized secret that 80 percent of all our results in business and in life stem from a mere 20 percent of our efforts.

The 80/20 principle is one of the great secrets of highly effective people and organizations.

Did you know, for example, that 20 percent of customers account for 80 percent of revenues? That 20 percent of our time accounts for 80 percent of the work we accomplish? The 80/20 Principle shows how we can achieve much more with much less effort, time, and resources, simply by identifying and focusing our efforts on the 20 percent that really counts. Although the 80/20 principle has long influenced today's business world, author Richard Koch reveals how the principle works and shows how we can use it in a systematic and practical way to vastly increase our effectiveness, and improve our careers and our companies.

The unspoken corollary to the 80/20 principle is that little of what we spend our time on actually counts. But by concentrating on those things that do, we can unlock the enormous potential of the magic 20 percent, and transform our effectiveness in our jobs, our careers, our businesses, and our lives.

In 1897, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, in his study of the patterns of wealth and income, observed that the distribution of wealth was predictably unbalanced. He first discovered this pattern in 19th-century England and found it to be the same for every country and time period he studied. Over the years, Pareto's observation has become known as the 80/20 principle.

Now in 1998, Richard Koch takes a fresh look at the 80/20 principle and finds that the basic imbalance observed by Pareto 100 years ago can be found in almost every aspect of modern life. Whether you're investing in stocks, analyzing company sales, or looking at the performance of a Web site, you'll find that it's usually 20 percent that produces 80 percent of the total result. This means 80 percent of what you do may not count for much. Koch helps you to identify that 20 percent and shows you how you can get more out of your business, and life, for less.