Today we live in a world of information overload. You get bombarded with so much information and choices daily, that you don’t know where to begin and where to end. I’m always finding myself reading and jumping from one thing to the next, constantly multitasking at everything. This has been causing me a lot of stress lately. I’ve been looking for a solution to the problem of information overload.
After reading the Expanded & Updated Bible for Lifestyle Design (Affiliate link by the way), Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Work Week, I was reintroduced to Pareto’s Principle of 80/20. The idea is to focus on the 20% of things that produce 80% of the results. For example, ask yourself these questions:
-What 20% of sources in your life cause 80% of your stress?
-What 20% of my actions are causing 80% of your happiness?
You need to realize the 20% of things that are causing 80% of stress so that you can eliminate them and focus on the 20% of actions that you currently are doing that account for 80% of happiness.
How the 80/20 Principle Can Free Up Your Lifestyle Design.
Focus on any area of your life and there is a good chance that the 80/20 rule is working its magic. We’re going to use an example that most of you reading blogs and information online face, which is information overload (which I am piling on with this post).
1. Define the problem.
Information Overload – For me it was looking at my daunting RSS reader and seeing around 400 unread RSS Feeds (blog posts usually) and about 50+ blogs.
2. Apply 80/20 Principle to the problem.
So I looked at the blogs and found that I only enjoy and actually read around 20% of them. So this narrowed the number of things to read down to 80! However, that’s still not enough for my stress to go away. So then I asked (as per the Lifestyle Design Bible), what 20% of these blogs or news sites will have information that I can immediately use and is important. This broke it down again into about 20% that I know that I LOVE to read and get the MOST VALUABLE and IMMEDIATE information from. This narrowed it down to sixteen important items that I know I’ll use and that will have an immediate impact on my life. This is comfortable for me and my lifestyle. Let’s take a look at the benefits
3. Now focus on the important.
You should have now eliminated a lot of clutter and stress by this point. You now have the ability to focus and put more of your mind, effort, and actively read information that you ENJOY and will be of IMMEDIATE USE to you. It will most likely not be information that you’ll read and be like “oh yeah, that’s some good info, I’ll try that out sometime later on,” which in reality you won’t. People forget information quickly, so reading about something now and not putting it to immediate action is basically useless information.
4. More time to focus on the other 20% of areas that matter in life.
The reduction in going through items to read after item to read has led to more time and you can now apply the 80/20 rule to other areas of my life.
5. More productivity.
Since you’ve applied the 80/20 principle to your life, you now have less stress and more time to be productive. You aren’t bogged down with analysis-paralysis.
6. More energy.
Less energy is expended by your brain and body focusing on the 20% of things that matter to you, instead of trying to DO EVERYTHING.
7. You.
Stress is lower, energy is higher, productivity is easy, and you’re happier and enjoying life more. Applying the 80/20 rule has opened up more time to do what you want in life, which is a big determinate in living your desired lifestyle design.
Final Thoughts.
I challenge you to go to your RSS Feed or however you receive information and delete 80% of blogs and information sites. Trial run it for a week and see if it works. You’ll most likely find that you can break down that 20% even further or add back in some of the information sites you deleted. The ones that matter to you will come back into your RSS Reader somehow. That’s when you know it’s probably important and impacts your life.
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G'day! I'm Gordie, founder and editor-in-chief of Lifestyle Design For You. I want to welcome you to the center of the universe when it comes to lifestyle design and personal development blogs. We're a team of ten writers providing you with articles to help nourish your mind and improve your life. Lifestyle design is about designing your life so you can do what you want when you want. 
{ 38 comments… read them below or add one }
Haha! I OWN “Surfing Digital Tsunami” on Google.
My latest technique is simply “Mark All” & “Read.”
The key is remembering who owns who.
Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Blogging Katamari Style (I’m gonna roll you up!)
Hi Dave,
You’ve picked the simplest solution. If you’re doing that often to the same blogs, it may be time to delete some. Not this one of course.
Hello, nicely written article. I agree with the 80/20 rule. I think this message can also been seen as another way to just simplify tasks in our daily routine. When we want to do a hundred items at once, it causes a lot of stress and puts us in analysis paralysis mode like you say.
As for the RSS reader, I was tired of going back every single day and seeing bold, unread posts. It felt like I needed to read and comment on all of them. When days would go by when I would forget to read them off, the pile of bold titles would heavily pile up. I became afraid to open my Google RSS reader; it was a very overwhelming experience. Now I just keep my favorites ones in a blue binder.
Hulbert´s last blog ..Are You Hungry Enough for It? – 5 Questions to Ask Yourself
Hi Hulbert,
I’ve noticed lately that you’ve been focusing on simplifying life lately on your blog. That’s great and I think I can notice you’re a lot happier as a result>
Hello Tanner/Gordie,
Someone once said, “Human level consciousness by itself can no longer resolve the complexities it has created.” We live in a world today where specialization is of primary importance. The society “manufactures” people who can each concentrate, improve, and innovate within a particular field of human endeavor or a certain aspect of reality.
Since the human population grows exponentially, we can derive from this the fact that no single entity can process the novelty of information that flows from new contributors – fresh graduates, upcoming professionals, increasing number of experts. This is why I agree with you that the Pareto principle is perhaps a good solution to this predicament although it may somehow lead entirely to more problems if applied unintelligently.
Right now, top 10% of the adults worldwide own 84% of the wealth and the bottom half owns barely 1%. “What has this got to do with personal growth,” you ask. We’ll, you see, I’m using it as a metaphor for someone who chooses to focus only on what “matters.” If one carelessly disregards 80% of the things that “doesn’t matter” in one’s life, it might make your life better today, but soon it will definitely do you some damage. Ever heard of “economic collapse?” =)
All in all, this is a very nice article. I just want to remind those who want to apply this principle that one should still do a little bit of careful analysis before deciding which things in life one should consider important and which things should be set aside.
Peace and respect,
Ryhen
Ryhen | Mind Power´s last blog ..History Repeats Itself
Hi Ryhen,
Great comment!:)
I just wrote in someone’s blog comments yesterday that if everyone applied all these awesome personal development and lifestyle design principles in a short period of time, then the world would experience economic collapse. That in someways shows how flimsy the consumerism that has been promoted for decades really is.
Have we built our house on the sand?
I like your comment Ryhen! I read the post with interest, and I take Tanner’s point, but for me the RSS reader was a poor example. Reading other blogs is one of the best things I do each day – there’s no stress in it at all. Yes, some days I don’t get through them all, so I mark them as read. But for me, that’s much more preferable than cutting out 80% of the blogs I read.
If we all followed the advice, we’d all have 80% fewer readers, which is pretty scary!
Mike, I’m sure your blog would not be one of the ones to get the cut.
80/20 rocks, It’s a great way to evaluate and simplify an existing system, there is perhaps an argument, for investigating the reason we’ve allowed that useless 80 percent into our lives, else we’ll find ourselves clearing out continually.
Michael Fletcher´s last blog ..Using Evernote for Goal Tracking Pt. 3 – Organisation
Hi Michael,
I think once we declutter, we still have to be vigilant in preventing extra tasks from creeping back in. We have to screen things to see if they’re worthy of our time.
Hey Gordie, I had this problem too, and I’ve been working for a solution in the past month. I’d be glad to talk with you about it if you want.
Oscar – freestyle mind´s last blog ..5 Powerful Lessons From Brain Rules
Sure thing, Oscar. I’ll contact you via Gmail.
Yeah I do find that I have a huge amount of RSS feeds to go through. But some of them are really great. Oh How I wish I had more time.
Can someone invent a 36 hour day. Should we move to another planet.
But I get what your saying. Simplify our lifestyle to remove the stress. Very wise. But still very difficult to achieve don’t you think.
With some things you can’t apply that principal. Imagine applying 80/20 to your comments. Only answering 20% of them.
Some things just automatically take care of themselves. Using comments as an example, some comments do not call for a reply or interaction, while others do.
Robert Bravery´s last blog ..Blog Directory for Bloggers
Hey Robert,
For comments I try to apply the 100/100 rule. I try to answer them all. The task of replying to comments may be very beneficial to many bloggers and offer a good R.O.I. so the whole task of replying to comments wouldn’t necessarily need to be cut back.
I started using an RSS reader and that helps me focus on the 20% posts I need. Skimming over titles rather than checking the actual blogs is a real timesaver.
Anne Moss´s last blog ..Driving in Israel
Welcome, Anne!
Why don’t you read the articles for their content. Can you learn much from skimming the titles?
That’s what I was taught to do, read only the ones with titles that look interesting. Honestly I can’t do it. Although my RSS Feeder is bloated and overloaded I just feel that I might miss something if I start deleting blogs.
Lis Carpenter´s last blog ..Who is Tim Ferriss?
Welcome, Lis!
Yes, I can’t just stick to the titles because some people may just write ordinary sounding titles but have great content in the article. However, I have to keep my RSS feeder down to about 40-50 blogs. Any more than that and I’m just having to mark as read too much.
I clean up my reader every couple of months just to clear out the blogs I never actually read. The worst lately has been people I am following sharing every post they read I swear. I think the next step is to unfollow them in my reader as they contribute roughly 50 posts a day to my clutter. I think I’ll do that right now…
Hey Josh,
I went and cleared about a third of my RSS reader out. I was never following that many anyway. I’m going to limit myself to 60 blogs.
Nice use of pareto analysis. I have used this in road safety and I never thought to see it used in lifestyle design but it is highly relevant in the way that Tanner explains it.
Hi Kevin,
It’s one of the core tenets of lifestyle design.
Hi Tanner/Gordie,
My first time here so I have some catching up to do. I recently read the updated 4 Hour Work Week book and it’s intense for me every time. Maybe because I know that I can use the information in that book and do so much more.
I have to get focused and use the 80/20 rule effectively. If you have a moment, drop by my site. Thanks!
Welcome, Moon!
As Tanner said in the article, The 4-Hour Workweek is the Lifestyle Design Bible.
80/20 definitely works and very well. The problem comes in when we selectively observe the practice. It is sometimes difficult to stay true to form.
Welcome back, Mr. Jones!
It can be hard to find ways to apply it evenly across the board.
Very smart advice from Tanner. I actually had a chance to interview Tanner yesterday. He gave some real gems on growth and I think he’s going to grow really fast if he keep up at this rate. Good stuff dude. I’m all about using the 80/20 rule.
I reckon Tanner’s a smart cookie, too.
I feel he has the eye of the tiger.
Tanner,
Unfortunately your blog was within the 80% that I eliminated…
Just Kidding!
I think that this 80/20 rule is applicable for business, but not for your own life.
When it comes to your life, once you define what really matters to you, you can easily define what is relevant to you… These relevant items on your life maybe are 1% or less of all the information, activities, etc. that come to your life. If you have defined what is really important to you, you will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff without requiring to use the 80/20 rule!
Hey Boris,
For your life you could look at which 20% of your relationships bring you 80% of your happiness. I think that’s a way you could apply it to your life.
@Dave lol whatever works. If it aint broke…
@Ryhem very insightful and thought provoking. Its not that you should focus on what does not matter, just don’t be inventing things to do to avoid the important which many people do.
Ood advuce on applying it. Like I said throw this idea up on the wall, the important things will reemerge.
“We shape our buildings and afterwords our buildings shape us.”
-winston churchhill
@Mike CJ that works if you enjoy each and every blog you are subscribed to. I didn’t, so I deleted a bunch of them and the ones that were important to me somehow found themselves back in my RSS reader.
I also understand if people apply this principle that I will lose some of my readers. However, to me, that is not such a bad things because we failed to make a connection. If my content is leit enough for them in the future, it’ll find its way back onto their screen.
@Michael here here, I plan on reevaluaating my 80/20 system every 2 weeks to keep things minimal.
@Robert look at your blog as a whole system, comments being in this system. Comments would most likely be in the 20 of important whereas constant little design tweaks (I am guilty) are probably not.
@The Real Josh you got this down already
@Kevin Tea thx Kevin!
@Moon I know this might sound cliche to a lot but Tim is a big role model of mine. We seem to share similar passions of never ending learning, experimenting, and simplification(which he does really well).
@Jimi True, I am on a 2 week 80/20 reavaluation system. So spending 30 minutes to an hour reevaluating the imprtant and unimprtant is an opportunity cost ithat I feel is worth it.
@Srinivas thx a lot! I had an excellent time talking with you. I look forward to the damage we can do together.
Good tactics by Tanner,well he said a good thing to people,nice idea really.
Follow up on 80/20 from one of the most respected personal/business development coach.
Tanner´s last blog ..This Just In: Eat when you are Hungry, Lose Weight!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BygEHtRYddo
Tanner´s last blog ..This Just In: Eat when you are Hungry, Lose Weight!
I have way too many blogs in Google Reader so I’ve come up with something else. I’m just trying this out so we’ll see how well this works. In fact, tonight is the first night I’m actually doing this so we’ll really see how well this works. Ok, here goes.
I just created a folder in my Bookmarks in Firefox called Blogs. I saved the home page of each blog I visit and even some new ones I am checking out into it. I just load all of them up at once and when I’m done with a blog I simply close out of the tab and the next blog pops up for me.
This solves a few problems…
1. I don’t see a bold number next to the blog. I like this because if I’m not sure if I’ve commented or not all I have to do is check out the comments and look for mine. If I haven’t I will.
2. I’m at the actual site and once I’m done there it’s as simple as closing the tab which means slate wiped clean.
3. I can narrow down the blogs I visit if they don’t appeal to me after a while and they’re simply gone.
That’s how I’m trying it out now. What do you think?
Eric´s last blog ..The Way I Blog With Ease
Hey Eric,
If that works for you that’s cool. My bookmarks are so bloated and I have no folders. I need to learn to delete bookmarks and organize them.
Good on you for staying on top of them!
I don’t have a problem with TV, but surfing the net is how I waste my other 80%… Trying to have 2 non computer days a week and that’s been helping dramatically. I feel a bit like a recovering crack addict… it’s bad!
Hi Ryan,
Yeah, I find since I work on the computer, it’s really hard to not spend too much spare time on the computer as well. In weekends I limit myself to an hour a day.