The 80/20 Principle - Why Less is More!
by Ian Watson
In the late 1800’s an Italian economist named Vilfredo
Pareto discovered an interesting fact while researching
the distribution of wealth in 19th century England. He
found that only 20% of the population enjoyed around 80%
of the available wealth, and was surprised to discover
that this disparity remained consistent across all the
different time periods and different countries that he
studied.
This tendency towards uneven
distribution was subsequently found to
appear in all kinds of apparently unrelated areas of
human activity. Traffic accident statistics, for example,
suggest that around 20% of motorists are responsible for
80% of accidents. If you look in your wardrobe, the
chances are you will wear 20% of the clothes you own
around 80% of the time. Study your living room carpet
carefully and you’ll find that 20% of the surface area
gets 80% of the wear and tear. Check out your music
collection and you’ll realise that only 20% of it gets
played 80% of the time.
In the business world, it has been found that a typical
company will generate around 80% of its profits from only
20% of its customers. If you work for yourself, you’ll
find that 20% of your activities will generate 80% of
your income. If you have a range of goods and services on
offer, only 20% of them will produce 80% of your total
revenue. If you work to a deadline you will find that 80%
of your productivity occurs in only 20% of the available
time. And so it goes on.......
Some years ago I became interested in the 80/20
principle, and set out to discover whether it had any
relevance to my homeopathic practice. I quickly came to
the conclusion that I was prescribing 20% of the remedies
I knew around 80% of the time (Phatak’s concise
little Repertory
exploited this
fact, omitting 80% of both remedies and rubrics that were
infrequently used).
Not only that, of the information I had gathered in a
typical case, I realised that only about 20% of it was
being used to prescribe upon, the other 80% being largely
ignored. This insight led me to wonder why I was writing
down all that other stuff that I almost never used! When
I looked more closely at my casetaking activities, it
became clear that 80% of what was valuable in any given
case emerged during 20% of the alloted time, and this
seemed to be true regardless of whether I spent an hour
with a client or fifteen minutes.
I also found that 80% of my referrals seemed to come from
20% of my existing clients. When I looked at my repertory
(which I did rather frequently in those days), I tended
to use 20% of the rubrics 80% of the time. And when I
paid attention to my after-hours telephone support,
you’ve guessed it - 20% of my clients were taking up 80%
of my time. And they weren’t the ones generating 80% of
my income!
What is interesting about Pareto’s principle, apart from
the limitless number of possible applications, is that,
in common with homeopathy, it is essentially
counter-intuitive. That is, it tends to go against what
everyday ‘common sense’ would predict, yet it reveals a
deeper underlying truth when you look into it more
closely. And this same principle holds true in the realm
of beliefs and behaviours as well.
In the last five years or so, I’ve spent most of my time
(probably 80%) researching unconscious patterns and the
ways in which they influence and determine a person’s
life experience. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out
that only a very few core beliefs (let’s say 20%) have a
massive and completely disproportionate effect on a
person’s behaviour, emotional well-being and general
self-esteem. Anyone who has spent a lot of time ‘positive
thinking’ and who has achieved a fairly minimal reward in
relation to their efforts will understand this equation
only too well.
I’ve also been amazed to discover how, in the field of
personal transformation, major shifts in consciousness
almost always seem to come about in response to the most
subtle interventions. I would go as far as to say that
the most spectacular results I have seen have been
directly proportional to my ability to keep myself almost
completely out of the way.
I haven’t drawn any particular conclusions about this,
except to acknowledge that the intuitive wisdom and
insight of the taoist sages of ancient China seems to
have stood the test of time. What I can say is that the
80/20 principle provides a way of understanding and
working with the invisible realm, opening up a host of
possibilities that would otherwise remain unavailable.
And the best part seems to be that on the dynamic plane,
energy follows the same basic patterns, regardless of the
field of action concerned. If we are truly able to grasp
how the less-is-more principle operates in one area of
life, such as homeopathy, we could just as easily
translate that understanding into any other area of life,
such as business, or finance, or wardrobe management.
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I
can't remember where this article was first published. If
you've seen it anywhere - do let me know!