12 January 2009

The 80/20 Principle

I started listening to "The 80/20 Principle" audio book. And the rap referenced in the beginning of the book wont get out of my head. 

My current three thoughts on the 80/20 Principle aer:

1. That 80% of my extra weight comes from 20% of my food. 

My conclusion. Instead of changing what I'm eating and when I'm going to only adjust the size. When i eat fast food I'm ordering the smallest adult sizes of the items I want.

2. 80% of nutrients come most likely from 20% of my food. Because of this I'm going to focus on identifying those items I eat with the highest nutrient value and ensuring I get them each day.

3. 80% of your judgements of things result in small to no outputs. So the decisions you make are generally fed only by 20% of your judgements.

This frees my mind to not focus so much on judgements because I now can understand that most likely 4/5 of those judgements actually don't do me any good.

I know this isn't a principle that should be flailed around like a bible of how to organize but putting things in context of 80/20 is very empowering to me.