How to 80/20 your life or why I decided to start this blog
I’ve been thinking of starting a blog for a long time now. I wanted a place to curate and synthesize my thoughts, and share what I have learned & am currently working on. There is always something that kept me away, most likely the insecurity that no one would read.
But I recently read this blog post: “How to 80/20 your life” by Mark Manson that finally gave me the push I needed to get going.
In the post, he talks about how to apply the Pareto principle to your life.
*The Pareto principle illustrated from asana.com
In case you are not familiar with the Pareto principle, here is a quick definition: “The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the "vital few").”
This principle seems to hold true in so many instances, from business to sports, to covid infections...you can find many more examples here.
Here are some of the prompts from the article:
What are the 20% of your possessions you get the most value out of?
What do you spend 20% of your time doing that gives you 80% of your happiness?
Who are the 20% of people you’re close to who make you the happiest?
There is more, and I encourage you to go read the full article, it’s a few minutes well spent.
There are so many ways in which I see the influence of this principle in my life. One of them being education and learning. You see, you can truly understand someone's priorities in life by looking at:
How they spend their time
Where they spend their time
How they spend their money
Where they are most organized
What they consistently talk about
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m obsessed with learning, more specifically about health and performance...and all the subcategories that you find within these, from physiology to psychology. This 20% of my interest, in this case, consumes 80% of my time.
So what do I do with the other 80% of the things I care about but don’t have the time and energy to fully invest in? I lean on the efforts and expertise of other people who spend more time and effort in these areas. For example, I’ll defer to my friends for things like:
When I want to know which pair of running shoes to buy
When I need tips on how to improve my golf swing
When I want to know about the next app or tech gear I need
When I need to know about good wines or craft beer on the market
On the flip side, health and fitness ARE and SHOULD be a priority for all of us. And as much as I want to 80/20 my golf and beer knowledge, I have A LOT of expertise that could benefit my friends, clients and others when it comes to those topics.
So this is my opportunity to do so. Here is where I want to share my thoughts on the things I really care about and spend more time researching than most (definitely over 80 % 😉) who will ever read this. I’m obsessed with training, nutrition, sleep, time management, workspace optimization, productivity, learning lifespan and healthspan extension.
I lift stuff, I CrossFit (formerly kinda competitively, now recreationally), I’ve been dabbling into running more and I coach. I coach a lot. And I care about my craft and my clients a lot. So this is the stuff I’m going to be talking about, and hopefully, I can give you ideas that will allow you to 80/20 the broad concepts of health and fitness.
Here is another quote from Manson:
“The rare people who do become truly exceptional at something do so not because they believe they’re exceptional. On the contrary, they become amazing because they’re obsessed with improvement. And that obsession (…) stems from an unerring belief that they are, in fact, not great at all.”
That’s it for now, stay tuned ✌️
PS: If you have anything you want to 80/20 on let me know below
Things mentioned in this article:
