general thoughts

Pareto principle

“Quite often, I d0n’t ask myself whether I do things well, but whether I do things sufficiently well.”

That sentence came to my mind yesterday afternoon, and I took a note, writing it down on the pad, for today. Paret0’s principle, 80/20 rule: There we go! Doing things sufficiently well can actually mean doing less to gain time and energy for other tasks or opportunities. An example: I spend 80 of my emailing time writing mails that are sales related but are not relevant for more than 20% of sales. I spend 20% of my emailing time for mails that are sales related and are relevant in the context of 80% of my sales. Doing things sufficiently well means: Cut these 80% of mailing time. The same is true for geographic sales, or sales to retailers. Or maybe stop working on a sketch after 20% because you already reached 80%, but of what?, that’s the question when it comes to creative projects.

Following strictly the pareto principle and optimizing my creative and business life accordingly, I could do 80% of my sales in 20% of the time I spend these days. The remaining 5-6 days of the week I could actually do whatever I wanted. How fascinating is that? Of course, we all do not work like that. Why? Because the 80% wasted are often the most thrilling and exciting slots in our days; interesting email communications with clients, fascinating twitter distractions and well, … discussions where we all learn about many things, that are more or less relevant, or more or less amusing.

Still: One of my missions in 2014 is to optimize and adjust. Pareto’s principle will be helpful.

Today’s sketch was done with Pareto in mind. Enjoy!