How did you do your 80/20?

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I'm curious about what questions you asked yourself when you did your 80/20 analysis. I've tried doing an 80/20 analysis before, but I feel that I may have missed a lot. It'd be great to get together a list of questions to ask myself during regular 80/20 reviews.

Any ideas?

[EditorDude]

Well, to state the obvious, there are infinite variables to this as we are all in different professions, roles and career positions - ofcourse. So here is one for students - or anyone that may be required to type up a report, essay etc.

Question wise, I suppose it would be: how can I cut down on time spent typing up reports?

Ans:

1) Rather than sitting down at a computer and starting to type straight away, first think of what you will talk about - then jot down a list (about 10 - up to you how much) of single sentence outline statements you are going to talk about.

2) Then get a dictaphone and talk about each statement in depth. Don't worry about how bad it may sound - for now, just keep talking - don't do any editing.

3) Now, play back your recording and start typing.

4) Once you are done typing, start refining and editing.

This streamline process cuts down on time spent thinking up an essay whilst typing as you think faster anyway than your typing speed. Personally speaking, it has helped me a lot. Ofcourse it's even better if you have voice recognition software - in which case you don't have to speak in to a dictaphone at all - just go straight to the computer.

[badhank]

Ofcourse it's even better if you have voice recognition software - in which case you don't have to speak in to a dictaphone at all - just go straight to the computer.

Do u know of any good/free/cheap ones?

[SCBidCaller]

EditorDude...

What voice recognition software are you using? I used Dragon, but have since switched to a Mac...

Thanks!
DM

[EditorDude]

I don't know much about this sort of software. Actually, I am on a Mac too - a friend of mine uses Dragon as well - but I myself still use a good old fashioned dictaphone. (The one built in to Windows XP isn't very good I've heard.)

[Sven]

You may have missed a lot. This one is the important one:

It is only the first 20% of the questions that matters. The rest will come along when the routine in 80/20 thinking sets in.

Sven

[Paranalysis]

there are infinite variables

Yeah, but only 20% of them matter ;)

[EditorDude]

Yeah - but even so, my 20% is not going to be exactly the same as your 20%. We've all got different priorities, roles, responsibilities etc than one another. That's what I mean by infinite variables.

[dannielo]

If you are a business owner, I think the 60/30/10 ratio is a better one to work with:

focus 60% of your time on marketing and selling
30% on product creation
10% on management and administration

[Sven]

To me that could be how to devide my 20% effort:

12% marketing, 6% product creation, 2% administration. And than I'd need the remaining time to think why stuff is so complicated :-).

Welcome to the forum Dannielo!

[EditorDude]

The numbers are great - but you've got to turn them in to specific action steps otherwise they loose meaning eg identify and eliminate 80% (useless) customers, or, identify and implement strategy to avoid 80% (timewasting) friends etc - infact, the numbers become less significant so long as the principle is in practice.

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EditorDude,

I agree. The numbers aren't as important to me as knowing what types of questions to ask about my work. I'm looking to apply this to my regular job, which doesn't fit into a sales/entrepreneurial category, so the examples in the book don't directly apply to my situation--

[lovinglife]

You might try the 15 minute method. Either keep a piece of paper handy or open up a Word document. Every 15 minutes jot down what you did the previous 15 minutes.

8:00- 8:15 picked up meesages from receptionist, got coffee and chatted with John about the game last night

8:15 - 8:30 went through emails, replied to Dan about the ABC account, fwd question about last weeks meeting to Nancy, checked out youtube link Sam sent

8:30-8:45 ret call to Floyd and discussed XYZ, told him Sharon was the one he needed to talk to

8:45-9:00 surfed the net while waiting on staff meeting to start

And so on. If you can, do this for a couple of days or a week. That should show you where you are wasting time, what things can be delegated out, calls that are taking too long, etc.


What I did for myself was different. But I work at home, 99% of my business communication is done by email, and I also start very early in the morning when the house is quiet.

I have a list of things that need to be done on a daily. I have a system on how I do things including how I have my supplies set up so I am not running all over the place. I also have stock emails set up for several situations so that I usually only have to copy and paste (occassionally I have to modify it for a particular situation but that's the exception rather than the rule). I grab my coffee and start in and do not stop (except for more coffee) until I get through the list. No net surfing, no reading non-business email that comes in during that time, just pushing through. I found that doing this I was able to achieve the must-dos in a fraction of the time I used to spend. When I get done with that part, I take a break and then start on whatever non-daily projects there are. Some days there are none. Because of my business, I do have to check emails periodically throughout the day, but I'm usually able to take care of them in a matter of minutes and I can go back to whatever else I was doing. I've been able to free up blocks of 2 to 4 hours during the day to go get a massage, take my child somewhere, go do lunch,etc. (having time to do those things was my goal - not interested in taking off on mini-vactions around the world right now)

[final_id]

Any idea whether there's any software which would tabulate your computer use? Like, as the 15-minute period is suggested, maybe it could TELL you at the end of the day what you've been doing in each chunk of time?

I know lawyers have to bill "by the hour" and therefore keep detailed logs of the tasks they've performed. You'd think that whatever is up and on-screen could be read and identified by a software program, and it could write it down for you. It might not be foolproof -- some research on the web into addresses of newspapers might be accidentally read as reading the news on the web, for instance -- but at least it would be a start. It could see where your browser goes, for how long; whom you're writing to in email, whenever the new email message is on top of all the other windows; which wordprocessing document is on top and which project it's associated with, whenever wordprocessing is the top window; etc.

Thoughts? Seems like it would be a great 80/20 tool.

[webgal]

I think shanerbrook might have some info on that if I remember correctly.

[lovinglife]

Looks like this program would work http://www.workingprogram.com/qlockwork.html. It's in 5 minute increments but it appears to note what website you are on.

I already knew that I spent way too much time playing on the net. I tried the 15 minute log and it only took me less than half a day to realize that, if I worked straight through with no interuptions, I could get done in 1-2 hours what I couldn't seem to get accomplished in an entire day when I didn't stay focused.

[EditorDude]

Yes - if you keep a time log, you can also set three main goals for the day and check where you deviate for each one - similar to the 15 min system above.

[Free4Family&Community]

If you are a business owner, I think the 60/30/10 ratio is a better one to work with:

focus 60% of your time on marketing and selling
30% on product creation
10% on management and administration


Sound great.

[final_id]

Just got diagnosed with ADHD. Maybe it's the case that nearly EVERYONE who isn't effective with their 80/20 ratios, is ADHD ...