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The 1% Method
80/20's archnemesis
Sometimes the truth is the distilled synthesis of two extreme, opposing views.
Sloppy-phrased armchair philosophy takes aside, I've always been caught between two opposing views of work.
On one side, the 80/20 principle: find the big points of leverage, the things that actually matter, the 20% of the work that brings 80% of the results – then go all in on that and forget about the rest.
On the other side, the "1% better every day" view: look for micro-improvements in everything that you do – if you can get 1% better every day, you'll get 38X better in a year.
Reader Yana shared a work tip that got my attention back to this conundrum:
Always think how to improve things at work.
I worked with this guy once who was working so smartly and efficiently and when we had nothing to do he kept trying to find ways to improve things, for example automating some administrative processes, creating excel models which would simplify calculations we needed on the daily basis, and so on.
I honestly thought he was incredible and learned so much from his approach!
Now, this is obviously a way to work smart!
You do stuff every day that, with a tiny bit of preparation, could be done better and faster next time.
On the other hand, several successful people swear by the 80/20 principle. Focus on the big things and forget everything else.
So, what's up with all of that?
The subtle difference between success and excellence
One of the differences between both of these views is that they chase different outcomes.
The 80/20 Principle is all about SUCCESS.
The 1% Method is, instead, about EXCELLENCE.
Does excellence lead to success? Sometimes. If you're excellent at underwater basket weaving, you're not going to be successful (unless you manage to make a TikTok career out of it).
If you want to win the Tour de France (a success), you also have to achieve excellence. Getting 1% better at tiny things is routine for competitive cyclists.
So, one thing to ask yourself is this: to succeed in my career, do I need to achieve excellence or can I 80/20 my way to success?
80/20 purists would say that if you're in a career so competitive that you need to seek excellence to succeed, you're in the wrong career. The 20% effort move that gets you 80% of the results is to change careers.
They're not wrong, but I disagree. Some people want to be excellent at what they do. There's value in that.
Reaching excellence in an 80/20 way
All that said, I think there are two ways to blend those views.
To get excellent in an 80/20 way (an oxymoron of sorts).
The first way is to try to get 1% better every day specifically in the parts of your job that matter the most.
There you go, you use the 80/20 Principle to help you find what thing in your work is the most important (let's say it is presentations) and then you seek excellence in that specific thing (you do every micro-improvement you can see to make you presentations top-notch).
The second way to find a useful synthesis of those two concepts is to 80/20 your way to the 80/20 of your job.
80% of the time you spend on the 80/20, the big things that matter the most.
20% of your time you spend on micro-improvements that'll make you excellent in the long term.
Because most people don't do any optimizations like that, you're gonna be way ahead of most people in seeking excellence while also having the advantage of prioritization that only the 80/20 principle can bring you.
The overall message, though, is simple: try to find the right balance between ruthless prioritization and careful optimization.
Keep working smarter.