Living The 80/20 Way: Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed More, Enjoy More

The 80/20 Way to enjoy work and success

Step 1: Focus on your 80/20 destination

What do you really want from your work? What does it mean to you? What would be ideal? What are the few things you care most about?

Below are many different things that might be important about your job.

• High pay

• A job I enjoy

• Security

• Good, comfortable conditions

• Excitement

• Friends at work, interesting colleagues

• Makes me think

• Variety

• A decent boss

• Hours that fit in with my life and are not too long

• Freedom to do things my own way

• Employer s reputation

• Prestige of my own job

• Excellent fringe benefits

• Prospects for promotion

• Important work that benefits other people

• Good training and ability to add to my skills

• An inspiring boss or leader in the organization

• Flexible hours, work when I like

• Place where I might meet my life s love

• Work that exactly fits my own abilities

The bottom three bullets are left blank for you to fill in anything else you want.

Tick all the bullets that matter to you.

Now, remembering the need to focus and that less is more, pick the one, two, or three points ” ideally just one point ” that matter(s) most to your happiness. Your choice points toward your 80/20 destination for work. If you can be even more specific ” I want to be a movie director, I want to be a nurse, I want to be a management consultant ” so much the better.

What is really strange is that many talented people pursue jobs and careers that do not make them and their families happy ” or as happy as a different job and career could.

Of my good friends, I figure at least half have not chosen the career path that would make them happiest. They put success and money ahead of enjoyment, fulfillment, and purpose.

Most of them have made good money. Did the extra happiness from money and status outweigh the extra happiness they would have derived from more fulfilling work? I doubt it.

Here s an intriguing fact. Dividing my friends into those who chose the jobs they loved on the one hand, and those who worked for money and success on the other, it is the former group who have made, on average, more money. Those who worked for fun and fulfillment rather than money also tended to make more money.

Work is more fun

than fun.

Noel Coward said that. Now hard evidence backs him up.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has pioneered research into flow, those moments of peak happiness when time stands still, when you find yourself doing exactly what you want to be doing, never wanting it to end, rather like the happiness islands discussed earlier.

He says that Americans derive much more flow from work than from leisure time. Flow derives from a sense of personal mastery and active achievement. Work that is matched to our strengths ” that leads to clear and positive results ” gives enormous satisfaction.

Success is not, and should not be seen as, a desperate process of piling up wealth and conspicuous consumption of material goods in order to impress other people. This is a game which nobody ” except perhaps Bill

Gates for a limited time ” can win. A millionaire s conspicuous consumption is dwarfed by a billionaire s, setting off a never-ending chain of competition and envy that destroys our benevolence, drains our energy, and is far removed from anyone s authentic needs and desires.

In success as in everything else, less is more. Quality is more valuable than quantity, giving is more satisfying than consuming, abundant time trumps abundant goods, serenity is better than striving, and love given generates love received. What we all want deep down is abundant time, security, affection, peace , tranquility, spiritual awareness, self-confidence , and a sense that we are expressing ourselves and creating things of great value to other people. True success is being able to spend our time how we like, fulfilling our unique talent, being valuable to people we value, and being loved.

Be very clear, therefore, what success means for you and seek that, not the world s definition of success, a tawdry, second-hand concept that everyone professes to believe but nobody actually experiences and enjoys.

You don t always have to change your job to enjoy it more. Maybe you can simply change the way you do it.

My barber and my tennis coach tell me about their lives and ask me about mine; I get free therapy with every haircut and tennis lesson! They enjoy their work more this way.

My mother, who used to be a nurse, was just in hospital for a week. She remarked how much more nurses today chat to the patients and their families, involving them in restoring the patient to health.

Could you do something to add meaning and value to your job?

Not everyone agrees that they can enjoy their work. My friend Bruce complains about his work. He took me to task when I said, Get a job you like.

As far as I m concerned , he said, what you say is pie in the sky. I don t like my job, but at least it s permanent and secure, which is a lot these days. I don t think you understand how tough it is in today s workplace, especially for those of us without qualifications. Haven t you heard about casualization? All the permanent jobs are being replaced by contracts and casual positions . I m just hoping to hang on to my job ” that s the peak of my ambition . The idea of having a career I love is just a pipe dream.

Let s look at it this way, I countered. A hundred years ago, work was grim and tedious . Nobody stopped to ask whether they could enjoy it. But today millions of people revel in their work. And the more they love it, the more successful they are. Why don t you do the same?

Finding a job you enjoy may be hard and take a long time, I added, but it is always possible. Every single person I know who has really tried to find a job they love has managed it eventually. Almost nothing you do, Bruce, will affect your happiness for your whole life more than finding a job you like. It s worth using all your effort and imagination on this.

How can you say that you can always get a nice job, Bruce said, when unemployment s shooting up and good jobs are like gold dust?

Well, I said, that s true, but even with high unemployment, there are always jobs. There is always hope. Why not make a list of jobs that you know or suspect you d enjoy? Spend a lot of time on this: make a really long list. Think whether you could create your own job.

I have lots of acquaintances who ve been through this sequence. First they re fired or retire from a job they dislike. Eventually they create their own job, one they like, either by persuading someone else to employ them, or through self-employment . Out of desperation, really, as they d zero chance of a normal job.

Either they make a go of that job or it doesn t work out, but they make it at their second or third try. They nearly always end up relishing their new work. Often make a small fortune too. Isn t it better to go through this process without being fired and when you re still quite young?

Maybe, Bruce said, but the jobs I ˜d like have hundreds of better-qualified people going for them.

It s true, I said, you ll compete against many people for a great job, but motivation matters hugely. Whether you really want the job or not shows through more than people imagine. There can be 20 percent unemployment in a category and yet if someone is 100 percent more motivated, they ll get that job or a similar one sooner or later.

Many friends have jobs they don t like because they re secure, or they pay well, or they get pressure from their wife, husband, partner, parents, peers, or teachers . Other friends have moved to jobs they like that pay less well, and found some way of dealing with the money ” by downscaling their spending, having two or more workers in the family, or using savings. What generally happens is that they and their families are happier right away. None of them regretted it. After a time, many made more money too.

Step 2: Find your 80/20 route

Look for more with less: super-returns on your energy. In every organization, in every industry, in every profession, some people are getting ahead much faster than others, without working harder. Why? Look for the 20 percent that delivers 80 percent:

• Fewer than 20 percent of applicants for any job are seriously considered and they get 100 percent of the jobs. What will put you in the magic 20 percent? Do you need experience from another job before applying for the job you really want?

• 80 percent of fun is concentrated in 20 percent of jobs. If you want fun, go for one of these.

• 80 percent of jobs that are fun and pay well are concentrated in very few professions and organizations. It may take some working out, but which jobs that appeal to you also pay extremely well? Do you passionately want to land one of those great jobs? Prepare a long campaign.

• 80 percent of growth comes from 20 percent of organizations. To get ahead, work for the fastest -growing firm. Someone has to fill all those new opportunities.

• 80 percent of promotions come in 20 percent of fast-growth firms or firms that always promote from within. Many family-run firms do that.

• 80 percent of promotions come from 20 percent of bosses ”those who are going places themselves . Who you work for may matter more than what you do. Put yourself in a rising star s slipstream. When was the last time your boss was promoted? If you can t remember, find another boss.

• 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of activities. What are the things that truly produce results in your work? Do more of them. Do them better. Forget everything else.

• 80 percent of useful experience in an industry or profession comes from working with 20 percent or fewer practitioners and from working in 20 percent or fewer organizations. Are you where you ll learn most and fastest with least effort? Do you have the right bosses and mentors?

• 20 percent or perhaps much less of what you do creates 80 percent or more of your value. Are you in the right place: right role, right industry, right organization, right unit? Where could you create the most value? What s the ideal job for you? Does it exist already? How can you work toward creating it?

• 80 percent of promotions come from impressing a few people. Who are they for the job you want? How can you best impress them?

• 80 percent of profits come from fewer than 20 percent of customers. Who are they for you? Could you serve these customers exclusively?

• 80 percent of wealth and wellbeing is created by fewer than 20 percent of people. Who are they in your area? How do you become one? Could you get together and spin off a profit center or new firm?

• Could you employ the best and brightest people, as boss or owner?

• 80 percent of value is created by concentrating on 20 percent of issues within a market, by innovating accordingly . 80 percent of value comes from 20 percent of changes. What demands are changing? Who is driving progress? How? Could you copy it, do it cheaper, take it to a new place, or take it further?

Which route will take you to your 80/20 destination for work and success:

• faster than you would normally reckon?

• to a much higher level than you re aiming at now?

• without cutting across your personality, forcing you to do things that are inauthentic or that you don t like, or making you play an artificial role?

• using your most distinctive and exceptional 20 percent spikes?

• enjoyably?

By definition, an 80/20 route must fulfill all these conditions and fully excite you. Keep thinking until you ve found your 80/20 route to enjoy work and success.

Step 3: Take 80/20 action

Work out the three key 80/20 actions to get you started. Each one must take you a substantial or giant leap along your 80/20 route toward your 80/20 destination.

Write them opposite .

For every 80/20 action step, stop three or four other actions. Act less; focus more.

Is this hard? Change is strange. Yet you re trading many things you don t care about for the few things you love. This change is progress.

The secret of trying any new approach is to take one action and find that it works. This will encourage you to take another step that works, and then another

In the First World War, sailors whose ships had sunk floated around in lifeboats, cold and hungry, for days, sometimes for a week or so. Then they d start to die. The mystery was that a greater proportion of the younger sailors died first.

How could this be? The young mariners were fitter and should have lasted longer. Eventually it was realized that many older men had been sunk before, or knew a colleague who d been sunk and had been rescued alive . Simply knowing that they d been saved before reinforced the will to live. They knew there was a route to survival. They didn t fret or worry. They knew that hanging on to life worked.

It was decided to brief all crew that they might be stuck in lifeboats for many days, yet that they would then likely be rescued alive. Survival rates soared.

Like the sailors anticipating rescue, if you put just one or two well- thought-through 80/20 actions into practice, you ll find that they work. So act now, and gain confidence that less is more and more with less really can change your life.

I d like to close this chapter with a story about someone whose entire life turned on less is more and more with less.

A long time ago a chap called Rowland taught in his father s school. He then became a clerk in the South Australian Commission. There was nothing remarkable about Rowland. He wasn t well off, well known, or well connected.

But he had an idea.

In his day, it was extremely expensive to receive a letter. The further the distance, the more it cost the recipient. Rowland s weird idea was that if the price of sending a letter could be slashed to a very low level, then thousands more people would send letters . He also invented the idea of a stamp ” the person sending the letter would pay, allowing delivery without the mailman having to collect money.

Rowland Hill persuaded the British government to experiment. In 1840 the penny post ” featuring the penny black stamp ” was born. It was a huge success. Hill became head of the new postal service, rich, and famous.

Fifty countries followed suit within a decade . This new communication channel was as revolutionary as the internet nowadays. The penny post encouraged ordinary people to learn to read and write, turbo-charging popular education.

Though he didn t know it, Rowland followed the 80/20 Way. More postal revenues came from slashing the price. One simple idea and one 80/20 action led to huge social benefit and a great new career.

Ask yourself: