In Africa, life is hard, mostly as a result of bad leadership as well as religious and ethnic division. So, we know for a fact that lots of young Africans have a hard time achieving their dreams when it comes to career choices on the continent. Those that do, have to work extra smart – this is where the 80/20 rule comes in.

We decided to talk about the 80/20 rule because it is important that all professionals know that in order to stay productive, 80 per cent of their results actually depend on 20 per cent of their efforts. The principle was first developed by Italian Sociologist, Vilferdo Pareto, while analyzing effective time management.

According to the rule, the first 20 per cent of your time and effort brings in 80 per cent of the results. The second 20 per cent brings in another 10 per cent of the results and the third 20 per cent (now we’re at 60 per cent so far) typically brings in 3 per cent. As the distribution continues, the percentage of results you generate get lower and lower.

Do you want to be productive? What are your goals? How do you spend your time? All the time you spend working towards your goal, will determine your results at the end of the day. How do you ensure you are following through with the 80/20 rule?

Identify the important tasks by ignoring the filler tasks and concentrating on the tasks that are actually important. For instance, you already know that as a staff of a company, you need to go to work every week day in order to get paid. So, you must suspend every other thing to go to work.

Also, as an online course student, you already know that if you finish your course, you will get a certification that will automatically increase your knowledge, so, you must finish it and become better skilled.

What we are saying in essence is, work smarter, not harder.

Source - https://lingoafrica.com/80-20-rule-dear-professionals-work-smart-not-hard/

Lingo Africa.

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