The 80-20 rule and the Not-To-Do list!

This post was inspired by a recent Bencivenga Bullet about the Pareto Principle (80-20 rule). We already talked about the 80-20 rule in an earlier post.

If 80% of the results come from 20% of your efforts, the secret to more productivity is simply doing more of the 20%. However to do that you probably need to identify and eliminate the unwanted 80% of the work.

Your Internet business strategy will be much more effective if you started thinking about your not to do list!

• Do you check your email every 5 minutes?
• Do you spend a lot of time at one or more Internet forums?
• Do you browse all over the net jumping from one site to next without completing the task you originally started out to do?
• Do you worry about things you just can't control and in the process not do the things you have full control over?

The best way to achieve full use of your resources is to create and implement a clear "time+effort strategy". Formulate an email strategy, a web browsing strategy, a forum involvement (social) strategy and so on.

Your email strategy

Checking your email every few minutes is one of the best ways to not get things done. If you are doing an important task, just shut down that email client or email alert software. There is nothing worse than getting distracted in the middle of an important task.

Make a decision on how you will handle your emails and then stick to it. For example, you can check and reply to your emails every 8 or 12 hours. If you have to respond to urgent customer queries install a help desk software and hire some one to respond to customers.

Do not Multi-Task

While multi-tasking is alright for computers, it is not a good idea for humans. Just take the task that need to be done and do it fully. Then move on to the next.  Scientific studies have shown that an average person will take much more time if he or she switched between multiple tasks during the course of the day. Apparently the brain takes four times longer to recognize and process the things when you switch from one task to another.

So avoid trying to reply to an email, modifying that web page and typing up a blog entry all at the same time. just do one job at a time!

Going walk-about on the net!

This happens to almost every one. You start with deciding to lookup some thing and do a Google search. Reach a site, see some thing that looks interesting. You then go read that. Then see some thing else that catches you eye and before long you no longer remember what you started with!

Allot a fixed time every day/week for the idle browsing. If you have to do research on the net stick to what you really want to lookup. Nothing more, nothing less!

Make Your Not-To-Do List Today!

These are probably a small sample of things in the NOT-TO-DO list. Think about it and start not doing things today!