1st Turning Point

Posted By Theresa Meyers on November 20, 2009

Theresa Meyers, Author and Publicist

by Theresa Meyers
1st Turning Point Staff Columnist
Copyright © 2009 Theresa Meyers

Writers and other creative types are always searching for the secret to making it big.  It’s far more simple than you think, and it all starts with the Pareto Principle.

Also known as the 80-20 Rule in business, the Pareto Principle was suggested by business management thinker Joseph M. Juran who named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto.  Pareto observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. In business theory, 80% of your profitable work comes from 20% of your activities.  It’s the top 20% of your clients or customers that brings in 80% of your earnings.

So what’s the secret to making it big?  Apply the Pareto Principle to your creative efforts.

Start by making a list of all the things you do in relation to your work (writing a book, painting a piece, crafting a song, whatever it may be).  Then identify which 20 percent of those activities is the one that brings in the money for you.  If you’re a writer, it’s writing.  Not keeping up with your filing in your office.  Not skimming emails.

Double check your list by asking yourself, “What are the consequences if I don’t do this activity?”  “What are the consequences if I make this activity a priority?”  The consequences for unimportant activities (that 80% that’s a time suck) are fairly harmless.  If you don’t file the papers, they stack up and wait.  Likewise, the consequences for not completing the critical activities (that 20% which makes all the difference) are huge.  If you don’t write the pages, you won’t make your deadline and you won’t have a career.

Now apply what you know.  To accomplish great things, to make it big, concentrate your efforts on that small portion of activities that makes the most difference to your life and your work.  Be honest with yourself and stop wasting your time on things that aren’t making a difference.  You want to be great, right?  Then be willing to give up or hand off the things that fall in that 80% as often as you can, and spend more time concentrating on the 20%.

If that doesn’t motivate you, try this.  Imagine that you’re offered a $100,000 bonus if you spend the next year only working on the high priority 20% activities in your life.  How would you change your behaviors?  What would you do differently?  You know what you need to do to make it big.  It’s right in front of you in that list of 20% activities. You just have to do it.

Salvation of the Damned by Theresa Meyers Silhouette Nocturne Bites - vampire romance novella March 2009 ISBN: 978-1-426-82837-9 Every thousand years, a plague ravages the vampire population, bringing them to near extinction. In forty-eight hours, a virus will turn all vampires into their true chronological age and kill them all, unless the right woman is sacrificed. It is a ritual that vampire Raphael has made before. Every millennium, he finds the perfect woman and seduces her so thoroughly that she willing gives her own life and soul to save his kind. But only once in six thousand years has he fallen in love with his victim…Then he sees Evaline St. Croix at a Mardi Gras costume party and feels the same raw need he felt for Isabeau. Eva feels an instant connection to Raphael, too, as if they’ve known each other forever. His voice and touch bring strange memories to her mind…and an explosive desire to her body. Could Eva be the reincarnation of Raphael’s lost love? And if she is, has he found her again only to lose her once more?

Categories: All authors, Theresa Meyers, Time Management
Tags: Pareto Principle, priority, success