Recursing over the Pareto Principle...

June 07, 2009



Vilfredo Pareto:

don't got time to shave.





I keep hearing rather a bit too much about this Pareto Principle.

Apparently, with just 20% effort, correctly applied, I can achieve 80% of the desired effect. Marvellous stuff!

I was about to go ahead and do this when it occurred to me:

"Why waste all that time, doing a whole 20%? "If I only did 20% of that 20%, then surely I could achieve 80% of the 80%?"

Then with a little more head scratching, and the help of an excel spreadsheet, I determined that with just 0.8% of the effort I could achieve 51.2% of the result -- which is a PASS in anyone's books.

So from now on, you will excuse me while I spend 99.2% of my time:

Lounging around, drunk, in a pool bar and Determining exactly which 0.8% of the effort to apply myself to.

Unless, of course, it takes 80% of the effort to work out exactly which 20% will achieve the desired effect. And it takes...

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