“You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.” —John Maxwell
How often has something seemed really important in the moment, but later you realize it wasn’t important at all?
The challenge is there are so many things to do, and they can all seem important. But in hindsight, we can see what was important and what wasn’t. Unfortunately, though, hindsight is not available on the front end, when we’re making the decision of what to spend our time on.
There’s a general rule known as the Pareto Principle (or the 80-20 Rule) that states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. For instance, we may find the top 20% of the salesforce account for 80% of the sales, or 20% of the products account for 80% of the profit. And although it’s a general rule, and may not apply perfectly to every situation, it does remind us of an important reality: some things will have more of an impact than others. And often the biggest impact is found not in the many, but in the few.
The challenge, then, is to discern what the most important things are, and focus time there. And the key to do this well is in remembering that the vast majority the urgent things of today aren’t truly that important in the long run.