The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule,[1] the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.
One of the things I'm trying to do right now is manage my time. I find myself deluged with all the obligations of the juice feast concurrent with maintaining two blogs all while trying to finish my degree. I realized this morning that all of these should fall under the 80/20 rule. I don't need any of these to be perfect. I only need them to be @ 80% proficiency. I have spent so much time on my thesis and my publications that at this point, getting 80% of what remains finished will be enough to push the thesis and the publications out the door. In my juice feast, I am trying to maximize everything I could possibly do to make the juice feast as optimal as possible while trying to cure my psoriasis. That's not necessary. The feast is so incredibly good for me and my body that doing 80% of what I could ideally achieve will be enough to send my psoriasis into remission (maybe not as quickly as 100%, but I can give up a couple weeks). This blog, understanding myself, and my emotional/spiritual evolution is critical to me. But the steps I've been taking and the writing I've been doing don't have to be perfect. They, too can be 80% effective.
I have concluded that spending 20% effort to achieve all three of these at 80% effectiveness will be optimal and will empower me to achieve these goals at this point in my life. I can roughly divide my available day into 20% chunks. In 24 hours, I reserve 8 hours for sleep, getting to sleep, and getting up. That leaves 16 hours. From the remaining 16 hours, I reserve 10% for upkeep and maintenance time. What does that mean? That is time lost from switching tasks, answering phones, checking calendars, etc. It happens constantly and has a low level deleterious effect on activity. This may be overcompensating a bit, but that works. Out of the remaining 14.4 hours, I reserve 2 hours for playtime - goofing off time. This leaves ~12.5 hours, or 5 chunks of 2.5 hours each. These are my productive hours during the day. 2 chunks will be devoted to my thesis and graduation. 2 chunks will be devoted to my health and well-being. 1 chunk will be devoted to this blog, self-empowerment, and cultivating relationships I need in my life.
Thesis and graduation is easy and straightforward - it will be time spent on research, communication, writing to advance towards my degree. This includes travel time on days I have to travel. I should devote a total of 35 hours a week towards this. Health and well-being is also straightforward. These are the life practices and juice feasting I need in order to heal my body and soul. This includes blogging time on Psoriasis Juice Feast, juicing itself, life practices, shopping, and research/reading. The final chunk includes this blog. It includes time spent on facebook cultivating relationships. It also includes time spent on self-empowerment and improvement. I want to make this blog more about self-empowerment. I will be posting about this shortly (when I have time alotted by this system), but I am finding that one of the things that is dawning upon me is how much control I have over the myriad facets of my life, and how I direct my attention and energy. This will be one of the topics I shall cover in this blog.
These are all ballpark and flexible times. But they are goals and guidelines for the week. Time, of course, must be averaged, so one day I may spend up to 10 hours on health, and only 3-4 hours for the next 3-4 days. These guidelines will also be flexible. These figures are simply drawn in pencil and if they don't fit my actual needs, I will adjust them.
The key insight with this post is that I don't need to perfect anything - I need to look at the big picture and understand what I'm doing with my life - and to spend my time accordingly.
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