My friend Dilip is a mechanical engineer and works with a company that manufactures components for 2 wheeler and 4 wheeler vehicles. He joined the company some 12 years back as an entry level executive and has risen through the ranks. As with any company and every job he has deadlines to meet, commitments to honor, pressures to handle, complaints to take care of, answers to give to senior management, presentations to make etcetera. In short he has the set of problems that most of us have. Too much on the plate to handle in far too lesser a time.
However this is what I saw different with Dilip. I have not seen him get hassled with his work load, be it in office or at home. He is been managing it quite successfully giving due justice to his work and balancing the work-life balance quite consistently. He gets all the time to connect with friends, take care of his hobby, spend quality time with the family and yet keep succeeding at work. So I decided to check with Dilip his secret.
I asked him the following questions to know his secret. 1. What method does he use? 2. How is he able to maintain consistency at whatever method he uses? 3. If someone wishes to use it, how can she adopt and adapt it?.
My questions turned this engineer into a teacher as he explained me his secret.
He said one economist by the name Vilfred Parito helps him do this. That's little confusing I said. What is the relation of this economist to you managing your activities effective every day?
He said that the Italian economist developed the 80-20 principle in 1906 that he uses.
The principle simply states that ' for many phenomena, 20% of invested input is responsible for 80% of the result obtained'. Put another way, 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes.
So how do you use this principle, I asked. To this Dilip said that he asks him the following question every day. " What are the most important things that I have to focus in my first 20% of the time that will take care of 80% of my work?". He went on to say that this allows him to focus on the most important priorities and complete them. This results in him using his time productively rather than just doing the activity.
I was still not convinced. How can one principle allow so much time so consistently? Doesn't he face the crisis situation regularly that does not keep things as simple as he was trying to explain?
He calls the top 20% of the time spent as the 'Master Stroke' of the day. This reduces the possible crisis situation drastically. Even after this if the schedule still demands his time, he knows where to channelize his energy.
Broadly he says this method has worked for him.
So how do we us it?
By using the method what he calls 'My top 3'. He says he does it for the quarter first basis the mandate given to him at his work, breaks it down to top 3 for the month, further goes down to top 3 for the week and then for the day. He does the similar exercise for his personal priorities as well. Then he ensures that he channelizes the top 20% of his time and energy to these activities.
We may want to use this for the month and check if it really works for us. I have started to test the waters. Will check the results after a month.
However this is what I saw different with Dilip. I have not seen him get hassled with his work load, be it in office or at home. He is been managing it quite successfully giving due justice to his work and balancing the work-life balance quite consistently. He gets all the time to connect with friends, take care of his hobby, spend quality time with the family and yet keep succeeding at work. So I decided to check with Dilip his secret.
I asked him the following questions to know his secret. 1. What method does he use? 2. How is he able to maintain consistency at whatever method he uses? 3. If someone wishes to use it, how can she adopt and adapt it?.
My questions turned this engineer into a teacher as he explained me his secret.
He said one economist by the name Vilfred Parito helps him do this. That's little confusing I said. What is the relation of this economist to you managing your activities effective every day?
He said that the Italian economist developed the 80-20 principle in 1906 that he uses.
The principle simply states that ' for many phenomena, 20% of invested input is responsible for 80% of the result obtained'. Put another way, 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes.
So how do you use this principle, I asked. To this Dilip said that he asks him the following question every day. " What are the most important things that I have to focus in my first 20% of the time that will take care of 80% of my work?". He went on to say that this allows him to focus on the most important priorities and complete them. This results in him using his time productively rather than just doing the activity.
I was still not convinced. How can one principle allow so much time so consistently? Doesn't he face the crisis situation regularly that does not keep things as simple as he was trying to explain?
He calls the top 20% of the time spent as the 'Master Stroke' of the day. This reduces the possible crisis situation drastically. Even after this if the schedule still demands his time, he knows where to channelize his energy.
Broadly he says this method has worked for him.
So how do we us it?
By using the method what he calls 'My top 3'. He says he does it for the quarter first basis the mandate given to him at his work, breaks it down to top 3 for the month, further goes down to top 3 for the week and then for the day. He does the similar exercise for his personal priorities as well. Then he ensures that he channelizes the top 20% of his time and energy to these activities.
We may want to use this for the month and check if it really works for us. I have started to test the waters. Will check the results after a month.
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