Vilfredo Pareto, an italian engineer, discovered a fascinating principle: For many topics, roughly 80% of results come from only 20% of the causes or input that went into the activity. This is also known as the 80/20 rule.
Pareto found this principle with regard to the economy. During his time, 80% of the land was owned by only 20% of the population. However, the rule can be found in many areas of everyday life, e.g.
- Sales: often 80% of the overall revenue comes from 20% of the best customers
- Software: a majority of the reported user problems is caused by a small number of bugs in the system
- Traffic: 80% of all accidents are caused by 20% of the drivers
How to transfer this principle to time management and your personal goals? Would you agree with the observation that often only a small portion of what you are doing at work has a real impact, and is appreciated by your colleagues, customers, or boss? And sometimes, you spend a lot of time on topics that don’t make a big difference… Are there topics in your work life where results and achievements are perceived as more valuable than in other areas?
What is a proven approach to find these ‘Key Tasks’, the ones that do make a difference?
- Start by thinking about the expectations that others have towards you. ‘Others’ may mean: your boss, your customers, your colleagues erc.
- What is considered important? What results are expected from you? What goals are you supposed to achieve? What is perceived as a successful outcome in this context?
- What would the best version of yourself be able to achieve? Write that down.
- Now work backwards and think about your workdays. What tasks are contributing the most towards these results? What tasks make a real difference?
These are your 20% – these are your key tasks! Your key tasks bring you closer to your goals each day. Why is this so important? Because only if you have clarity about your key tasks will you have a basis to rank and prioritize how you spend your time: how much time per task? What comes first?
And why are tasks more relevant than goals and goal setting? Because goals are abstract, but tasks are concrete and actionable
Try to spend more time on them, and put them earlier in your daily schedule – the effect may be remarkable.
Learn more about this and many other related topics in the new online course Time Management and Productivity with Microsoft Outlook. This course will guide you systematically through all major topics and includes many small exercises that make it easy to apply what you learn. YouTube is great – however, this course teaches you the essentials in a more effective and actionable way for a better time-to-result ratio.
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This course is for you…
- If you often have more to do than what fits into a day – and therefore need to split your time across several tasks
- If you want to get to the next productivity level with limited time investment – more results with less stress.
- If you are already using Microsoft Outlook for emails, but don’t utilize the calendar and planning functionality much. Be assured, a lot more is possible!
After this course…
- You will start the following days with your first weekly plan
- You will focus your energy more effectively on your key goals
- You will plan and track your tasks more systematically and with less effort
How is the course structured?
- We start with a few basic principles:
– How to derive your personal goals and key tasks
– Pareto- and Eisenhower principles, prioritization and daily performance curve
– Why todo lists are not really useful for time management - Then, I introduce you to the method that most successful people use: work based on a calendar plan. With a few systematic steps, we’ll convert your current todo list into such a plan. You’ll see it can be done in minutes.
- As a tool for the practical application, we’ll use Microsoft Outlook (no specific version required). A great tool, totally underutilized if only used for emails. Finally make better use of the software that you already have.
- There will be many short exercises and tips for the transfer of theory into practice: how to handle interruptions and required changes, tracking of tasks via sticky notes, Kanban and much more.
- Time savers and productivity tips, e.g.:
– how to reduce the number of emails in your inbox
– how to set up an efficient info retrieval system
– fast and reliable tracking of emails and topics
This online class will guide you step by step through all relevant topics. Checklists and short exercises simplify the application, giving you the best return on your time investment.
➔ Register here with coupon code: <click>