I first heard about the 80/20 rule from an author I admire, Vanessa Hua. She mentioned this principle when answering my question about how to make financial ends meet while writing a book. Everyone knows that writing fiction is not lucrative--in fact, even "successful" novelists who publish up to nine novels in their lifetime may never lead more than just a modest, budget-oriented lifestyle. Hua's answer to my question was to spend 20% of her time earning 80% of the money she needs to survive, while spending 80% of her time writing--which in turn generates about 20% of her income.
I encountered the 80/20 rule again in Tim Ferriss's book, The 4-Hour Workweek. This bestseller is a guide about rising above the rat-race and achieving a lifestyle where you literally work only 4 hours a week, but still get to travel the world, pursue your interests, and live comfortably, so naturally Ferriss encourages us to identify that one thing in our job or business that we spend the least time on, but generates the most money. If we can spend just 20% of our time working, that frees up 80% of our time to pursue other more meaningful goals in our life, and the beauty is that with just 20% of our time, we're already earning 80% of the means to pay our bills.
The 80/20 Rule seems too good to be true--surely it's just something salespeople made up, right? In fact, the Pareto Principle is grounded in scientific observations. Legend has it that Pareto found this rule when he discovered that 20% of the pea plants in his garden generated 80% of the healthy pea pods. It's an actual thing, is what I'm trying to say, so why not embrace this concept and try to apply it to your life?
When we're trying to change careers or pursue the things we love, most people state money as the major obstacle. "I hate my job, but if I leave it, how will I pay the bills?" "I want to go to school again to study what I really like, but how will I manage financially?" "I can't afford to enter a new field starting from the bottom rung ladder, because I can't afford the pay cut." As life goes on, these roadblocks get stacked higher and higher--at first it's just rent and groceries you need to account for, then comes mortgages, student loans, childcare... How many times have we told ourselves that we'll pursue what we really love "when we earn enough money"?
So how can we apply the 80/20 rule to help us change careers? I can think of at least two ways. For illustration purposes, let's suppose you are an accountant who really wants to become a cook. You can:
1. Find a freelance accounting job that takes up only 20% of your time (say 8 hours a week). This frees up 80% of your time (32 hours a week) to practice cooking, go to cooking school, or intern at a restaurant. You'll be paid little to nothing as a novice cook, but because you are an experienced accountant, you'll make enough money to get by by just doing accounting work 8 hours a week.
2. Maybe you fail at finding that super lucrative freelance accounting job that pays $500/hr. Working just 8 hours a week just isn't enough to pay your bills. So you settle for staying at your old accounting firm, but you go to your boss and negotiate a new contract that has you working just 80% of the work week (4 days a week, instead of 5). That leaves you with 1 day a week to intern at a restaurant and practice your cooking skills. This isn't ideal, but at least for one day each week you get to live your dream. As you become a better cook, you'll start earning money for your cooking skills, and you may be able to work just 3 days at the accounting firm and 2 days at the restaurant, and then 3 days at the restaurant...so on and so forth.
Do the above two scenarios sound too ideal? Maybe you're objecting already. "Yea right, as if I could find a 1-day-per-week job that'll pay 80% of my bills!" "What boss will allow me to work 4 days a week?" If these are your objections, I just want to say that these things are doable. People negotiate for jobs like this every day. It's not easy, but nothing about changing careers is easy. Perhaps you won't find something "exactly" like the two above scenarios, but with some creativity, I'm confident you can apply the 80/20 rule to your goal of changing careers in some helpful way. Be creative. Think outside the box. Don't let what I write in this blog post limit your imagination. As they say, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."
The beauty of the 80/20 rule is that you can interpret it any way you like. The point is that you must believe that "80% of results will come from just 20% of the action." In other words, for those of us who don't have enough time, who juggle multiple life responsibilities, try carving out 20% of your time to pursue your passion anyway. 20% of your time may turn out to be all you need to get 80% of the way toward your goal of changing careers.
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