Examples:

1. 20 percent of workers produce 80 percent of outputs.
2. 20 percent of the salesforce close 80 percent of sales.
3. 20 percent of products return 80 percent of revenue.
4. 20 percent of the population owns 80 percent of the wealth.

References:

1. Developed by Vilfredo Pareto who observed that around 20 percent of any group is responsible from 80 percent of outcomes.

Insights:

1. Doing a few important things can give a much greater return than doing many less important things.
2. Progress comes from prioritising and focusing on actions towards the very high priority items, and leaving the rest.
3. Just being slightly better than competitors and maintaining that advantage can reap high rewards.
4. The Pareto Principle is compounding: small advantages in the beginning become big over time.

Principles:

1. Rank to-do items in terms of priority and work on only the top 20 percent.
2. Maintain a 1 percent advantage over competitors.