As we have already mentioned, everyone has the same amount of
time.
Yet some people, manage to achieve better results in a shorter period
of time. Others take a much longer to achieve the same results.
Why?
The complete understanding of time management is understood if
you just understand what I am about to say next!
Since you have a “finite” or
“limited” amount
of time, each day, use your time each day to do the
“right”
things. Don’t waste your time doing the “useless or
wrong” things. If you just do this, you will be able to
achieve
results at a much faster rate!
Obviously, the next question you will ask is, what do I mean by
“right” things and what do I mean by
“wrong or
useless” things?
One obvious answer that probably comes to your mind is that,
“watching TV for 3 hours or surfing the net and reading
forwarded
e-mail” is an obviously “useless or
wrong” activity
to waste “limited” time on.
To some extent you are right. Though it is not a good idea to spend the
whole day doing these things, you must relax from time to time or your
ability to work will reduce. Also the quality of the work you are doing
will reduce.
However, this is NOT what we really mean by “wrong or
useless” work!
To understand what we mean by “wrong or useless”
work, you
need to understand the “80/20 rule”. If you are
doing an
MBA or have studied economics, you probably have already come across
this rule in some form or the other.
The 80/20 rule has many different forms. However, the form that maters
to us is that:
“Only 20% of all the effort you make, causes 80% of your
final results!”
Please Note: The above rule is only true if you do not manage your time
properly. If you do manage your time properly, then this law
does
not hold true for you. The law represents the "average public".
This rule tells us that we can do many many things to get the results
we want, but only 20% of the things we do, actually produce 80% of our
final results. The other 80% of the things we do just produces the
remaining 20% of the results.
This law is almost everywhere, in business, in your personal life, in
your work etc. For example:
- 80% of the world’s money is in the hands of 20% of the people
- 80% of total business sales come from 20% of your clients
- 80% of the India’s problems are caused by 20% of the total causes.
Let us try to understand this rule by taking the example of a
student who wants to learn how to solve the sums in a particular
chapter. Let us assume that the student has devoted 4 hours for this.
Now, the student can do many things to achieve the result he wants.
He could “learn up” all the sums in the chapter.
This would
probably take him more than the 4 hours he has decided to give to the
task.
He might decide to “learn up” all the formulas and
then
practice all the sums. This might take him the complete period of the
four hours.
He might decide to read and completely understand the fundamental
concept behind the formulas, the derivation of the formulas and how
they are applied. Then he might try to apply the formulas to a few sums
until he is satisfied and that’s it! This might take around 2
hours.
This is how you must use the 80/20 rule. The above example is
crude,
but you do get the basic picture. When you want to achieve a particular
result, there are many things you can do. But there are certain things,
(the 20%) if you do them, 80% of the result you want to achieve will
take care of itself!
If the above example did not clear your doubts, consider this:
Assume, that you have to convince a group 20 people to do
something for you. You can achieve this result in different ways.
You could go and approach each and every person of the 20
people and convince all of them seperately. This will probably
take up a huge amount of time. Another way in which you can achieve
this result would be:
- Identify the leaders or the influential people in the group. Identify the people in the group who the other people follow. This will be a small number, two or three.
- Approach these people and convince them.
- Once these people are convinced, they will convince the other people.
This is another crude example. But, what needs to be
understood is
that, by just doing 20% of the work, you can get the result you intend.
The remaining 80% of the work that you have to, is done on its own.
This way, you save time and you concentrate on what really matters.
This way, you do the “right” things and the
“wrong or
useless” things take care of them selves. This is the key of
time
management.
Next time there is a particular task you want to complete,
don’t
just jump head on into the task. Stop. Plan. Think about the task.
Locate the 20% part of the task. Most tasks have a 20%. Once you
identify it, then work it. This will give you 80% of your results. This
way you will end up saving on a whole lot of time.
There is much more to learn about the 80/20 theory. To really
appreciate the power of the principle, we suggest you read the book
"80/20 Management". You can get your self the book from ebay.in.
If you are new to ebay, do not worry, you can just sign up from here free and buy whatever you are interested in right now! It's quite easy!
Once you are signed up, search for "80/20 Management". You could then choose one of the results and buy the book!
We recommend that you buy the book from Ebay.in since it is
quite safe & secure and you will get a good deal. If you are
not comfortable with Credit Card
payments, there are always other options like DD, money order etc. that
you can go in for.
Next - Do what you need to do! >>
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