A common lament people have is that they don’t have enough time to do the things they want: exercise, meet friends, learn new things, read or whatever other things people usually complain about. I too complain about these things, though lately I have come to realize that I am probably wrong in doing so.
Why? Well, I have touched on the 80/20 rule before, and I find it interesting to reflect on it because there is a lot of truth in it. Consider the following statements and whether or not they are more right than wrong for you personally. They are certainly correct for me to a large extent:

  • 80% of the happiness in your life has been condensed to 20% of the duration of your life.
  • 80% of the valuable output you create is done in 20% of the time you spend working.
  • 80% of the gains from learning has been achieved in 20% of the time spent trying to learn.
  • 80% of your actions do not contribute to your happiness, nor to very valuable outputs you are trying to create.

Do the statements hold any water, are they more true than false? They certainly are more true for me.

For me, the moral of this is that time is in no way in short supply for most of us, we are just very uneconomical in the way we carelessly use it, or rather waste large parts of it.
What if you could spend more of your actual time in what is currently the “20% zone”? How much more would you get done, and how much more valuable would it be? How much happier would your life be? How much time that is just being wasted right now could you reclaim, to use for other, more valuable “20% zone” things you may want to do?
It is certainly worth considering..