High Level Summary: The essence of this book is FOCUS. Shift from mindless patterns of habitual behavior to thinking critically and creatively about how to develop your habits only around 80/20 impact items. Invest more time in highly leveraged activities so that you can find greater returns on your energy. Act less, think and focus more. It’s worth using all your imagination and effort to arrive at the end goal.
“The things that matter most should never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.” Goethe
Parkinson’s Law: work expands to meet the time allotted.
“If everything is important, then nothing is.
If we learn to focus on the things we believe are most important—we discover that less is more. By concentrating on fewer things—the few really important aspects to our lives—life suddenly becomes deeper and more rewarding.
“It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.” Warren Buffett
The 80/20 Principle: roughly 80% of results stem from 20% or fewer of causes.
Increase the proportion of your time on the few things that produce the most benefit.
The role of habits: anything we do is much more difficult the first time, and gets progressively easier the more we do it, to the point where it becomes easier to do it than not to do it.
We are likely to experience 80% of our happiness in 20% of our time.
Probably 80% of what we achieve comes from 20% of our time.
“Those who make the worst use of time most complain of its shortness.”
Act less, think more. Reflect on what really matters to you. Stop doing anything that isn’t valuable. Savor life.
According to Warren Buffett, his style, he says borders on lethargy. He makes very few decisions, only the extremely important ones.
Our destiny lies in becoming individuals—creating and fulfilling our unique potential. We each evolve differently and unpredictably. Individuality implies differentiation. Becoming different requires editing, subtracting, focus. We become dissimilar by focusing on our distinctive and authentic parts.
Make a great mental leap: dissociate effort from reward. Focus on the outcomes that you want and find the easiest way to them with least effort, least sacrifice, and most pleasure. Concentrate on what produces extraordinary results without extraordinary effort. Be efficient but relaxed.
80% of your value to other people comes from 20% or less of what you do. What are these few vital activities?
80% of your success derives from 20% or less of your skills and knowledge. What are the really valuable things that you do so much better than other people?
80% of your achievements arrive in 20% or fewer of the circumstances in which you find yourself. You shine at specific times, in particular ways, with certain people. When? Where? Why?
Concentrate on the really important things that get amazing results. Do only the few things with greatest benefit.
What do super-successful people do differently?
They are ambitious
They love what they do
They are lopsided. Super-stars are not well rounded. Their weaknesses don’t matter. The concentrate on their strengths, honing these to Olympian standards. Balancing strengths and weaknesses is for the mediocre.
They know a lot about a little. They become experts on a narrow front. They seek to know 99% about 1% of something.
They communicate clearly. They sell and market themselves concisely.
They evolve their own success formula. They are continually adapting, evolving and improving their craft.
“Work that is matched to our strengths leads to clear and positive results—gives enormous satisfaction.
Look for more with less; super returns on your energy. In every organization some people are getting ahead much faster than others, without working harder. Why? Look for the 20% that delivers 80%.
“Of Yale’s 1953 graduating class, only 3% set written financial goals. 20 years later, researchers discovered that these 3% had more money than all the other 97%.
“Work only on things that will make a great deal of difference if you succeed.” Peter Drucker
“There is no necessary correlation between how busy you are and how productive you are.” Andy Stanley
