Pareto’s law states that 20% of the effort gives 80% of the results. It was created by management consultant Joseph M. Juran in the context of quality control, and improvement, naming it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who noted the 80/20 connection while at the University of Lausanne in 1896.
In my case this is where I noticed that this law exists. Only around ~20% of my design sell on print on demand websites. Also, only about ~20% of these selling designs make all the money for me.
Another example from my experience. Only about ~20% of my customers earns me ~80% of my whole income from art commissions.
This Pareto’s law can really be adapted in many aspects of our lives. Let’s imagine a computer hard drive. Most likely only a small percentage of files, probably around ~20% takes up around ~80% of total disk space. Another example would be – only a small percent of people own all the wealth in the world compared to the general population. The percentage 80%/20% doesn’t have to be exact, it can be 70%/30% or 65%/35% or 95%/5%, you get the point.
We can draw conclusions from this phenomenon and improve our productivity by focusing mostly on the things in life that give us the most benefit for the time invested. For example, instead of making 20 commissions for $50 per month, totaling $1000, finding 5 clients who pay $200 and also getting $1000. By going only for 5 quality customers, we not only are able to create better work for them, give better customer service, since we are less overworked, but we also get paid the same by doing less work.
Let me know what you think and add some of your life experiences with this law.