One of the things I wish I had learned when I was younger is that not everything you do counts an equal amount or will get you equally far. If you are given a homework assignment worth maybe .2% of your total grade, or a midterm for a different class worth 30% of your grade which one is worth spending more time on? The answer is obviously the Midterm. But what if the answer wasn’t so obvious? What if all I told you was you had two tasks you had to accomplish tonight for homework? What would your strategy be? Choose the shortest first? The longest first? The one you are best at? Or is hardest?
Now let’s look at college. You have 10 different readings due next week, do you read them all? Skim some? Completely disregard others? Forget that you had to read one?
When it comes to completing school work, and really to completing any tasks in life, you should always be asking yourself “what is going to get me furthest, benefit me the most, or offer the greatest advantage?” Spend your time doing those things and forget the rest. A very wise man, Vilifred Pareto once said that 20% of the work produces 80% of the bounty/harvest/etc. In other words, 20% of the tasks you do will produce 80% of the benefit. This is often referred to as the “Pareto Principle” or the “80/20 rule”. Since learning this rule, I’ve tried all kinds of variations of it. There’s some truth to it, but also some impracticality.
If you had 10 readings for school, only reading 2 of them is impractical. Your professor probably won’t expect you to do all the reading (especially if all 10 were for the same class), but certainly expects you to read more than 2. A smarter strategy I like to do is to review them all, but only read about 20% especially for journal articles and textbook chapters. Below are my top 3 tips and tricks I use to utilize the Pareto Principle to its fullest advantage in school.
Pareto Principle Tip 1: Reading Journal Articles
A very smart grad school professor of mine once pointed out that unless you’re writing a thesis/need to be an expert on some reading, you probably don’t need to read the article in its entirety. Instead, just read the introduction and the conclusion.
Pareto Principle Tip 2: Reading Textbooks
The same idea applies to chapters in textbooks! Don’t waste time reading the whole thing, when the most important stuff is in the introduction, conclusion, and maybe the first paragraph of each section. Check out my article on the Hudgin’s reading method to learn how to read your textbooks faster!!
Pareto Principle Tip 3: Prioritization during the school week
Will getting a 100 on a homework assignment or taking time to study for the SAT get you further? What about doing a textbook reading, or studying for a major test? You need to stop treating every task like its worth the same amount and begin prioritizing assignments and tasks worth more of your grade, or that will count more in the future.
The Pareto Principle can easily be used in conjunction with Eat that Frog, by choosing to do the top 20% of your tasks first thing in the morning. Click here for my blog post describing “Eat that Frog.” The Pareto Principle can also be used in a variety of other areas of your life including but not limited to extracurriculars, relationships and more! Next week we will be discussing how to use the Pareto Principle to find your “golden egg” task.
take time to figure it out 