You’ve no-doubt heard of the Law of the Vital Few. It’s the 80/20 rule, which states that roughly 80-percent of the results come about from just 20-percent of the energy.
What if you took your 80-percent results and applied the 80/20 rule to them? And then one more time?
That 1-percent of energy spent reaps a dispraportionate result. Tim Ferris calls it the Minimum Effective Dose.
In his book, The One Thing, Gary Keller writes that “success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right.”
If there was one thing you could do that represented roughly 1-percent of your time and energy. And if that one thing was a cause for the intial half of the results you’re seeking. Then it’s safe to say that it’s a good idea to keep on doing that one thing.
Step back for a moment and take stock of one area of your life that you want to improve. Perhaps it’s your health, your inner personal life, your relationship with your spouse or kids, your job, your finances, or your free time.
Looking at that area, you probably see right away the 1,000 things you wish were different and that you know you should change. But when you’re staring 1,000 important things in the face, you’ve no idea which one to start with. It’s totally overwhelming.
Which is why you need that Minimum Effective Dose.
Think again about that area of your life where you’d love to see change. What is one thing you could do that would have a disproportionate result compared to anything else you did?
- Want to get in shape? Try walking for 15 minutes per day.
- Want to improve your marriage? Compliment your spouse every day.
- Want to get out of debt? Focus on paying off your smallest debt first to get it out of the way.
- Want to feel more recharged after the weekend? Read a book for 30 minutes before binge watching Netflix.
- Want to advance your career? Find someone new to have lunch with every week and ask them what you can do to help them.
These things in and of themselves will not revolutionize your life over night. But the power is in their simplicity and their do-ability. And once these things get into place as part of your day-to-day lifestyle then they create a momentum that you can ride as you incorporate new activities. For example, you start out just walkling for 30 minutes. And then you begin to jog for a while at first and then walk the rest of the way. Until pretty soon you’re jogging the full half-hour, and more…
But that’s not all. The other advantage to defining a Minimum Effective Dose is the simplification it brings.
Knowing the single most important thing you can do is liberating.
It simplifies your life because you know what it is you need to do, every day. Which, in turn, helps you know what you don’t need to do. You have just one task, one activity, one way to spend your energy. Go do it. Because the value in small things done consistently over time cannot be underestimated.
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For further reading
- The One Thing, by Gary Keller
- My article on How To Show Up Every Day
- The Procrastinator’s Guide to Progress — a free 40-page PDF I’m giving away over on The Focus Course website