Want To Know How To Focus and Maximize Creative Output? We have the remedy. Read on. 🙂

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  1. Video Version
  2. The Problem – Lack of Clarity
  3. The Law of The Vital Few
  4. The Rule of Three
  5. How To Identify Your Most Vital Activity
  6. TL;DR (Too Long Didn’t Read)
  7. Download Our “Vital Few” Worksheet
  8. Further Reading

Video Version


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The Problem – Lack of Clarity

One of the biggest pitfalls entrepreneurs and/or creatives fall into is not knowing what to do in order to move their business or creative projects forward. So, as a result, we try to do more and more things. What new shiny object can I use to improve my business? What new platform can I market? What new product can I create? etc. So our effort ends up fragmented and scattered across multiple projects.

As a result, we never reach the goal or get there very slowly. We keep starting and stopping and running in different directions.

But the quickest way to reach the goal is to run in one direction towards it. The Law of The Vital Few and The Rule of Three can help you narrow down your activities to reach your goals the fastest no matter what they may be.

The Law of The Vital Few

[bctt tweet=”The Law of The Vital Few · 80% of a given effect is due to 20% of the possible causes.”]

The Law of The Vital Few · “80% of a given effect is due to 20% of the possible causes.” This law is also called Pareto’s law, or the 80/20 rule. The law of the vital few means that there will always be an unequal distribution where a small number of things or activities will yield most of the results.

Pareto’s Law in Effect

  • The richest 85 people in the world have as much wealth as the bottom 50%.
  • 90% of communication comes from 500 words.
  • 80% of a businesses sales come from 20% of its customers.
  • The top 20% of salespeople are responsible 80% of the sales.
  • 80% of complaints come from 20% of people.
  • Your top blog post gets way more hits than every other blog post, etc.

But here is where the law of the vital few comes applies on how to maximize your creative or business output. 80% of our results come from 20% of our activities. Therefore, we should do focus on the vital few activities that help us grow and eliminate everything else.

The Rule of Three

[bctt tweet=”The Rule of Three – 90% of your contribution to your organization comes from three activities.”]

The Rule of three states that 90% of your contribution to your organization comes from three activities. Your job is to identify the top three activities and to spend most of your working hours on just these three activities. It’s Human nature to do activities outside of these three things because your top three tends to be hard. It definitely is for me. Chances are, the most valuable work you can do is the most difficult work you can do. I want to be an author. Writing a book is very hard. But this means I have to write.

Each person’s top three activities are personal so you have to figure out yours on your own. I’ll use mine as an example. As I stated earlier I need to write, my other activities are lawyering and marketing automation. These three activities are my vital few that will reap rewards in very disproportionate measures compared to the other activities that I can do.

An even more extreme version of the law of the vital few (and perhaps the most practical explanation I’ve read) of the 80/20 comes from Gary Keller’s The One Thing. If you guessed that by reading the book you will be slapped silly by the author telling you to focus on doing One Thing over and over again then you would be right. The author suggests to figure out your one key activity that will disproportionately impact your results and to spend about 4 hours uninterrupted hours on that activity each day.

How To Identify Your Most Vital Activity

Unfortunately, I can’t help you pick the three activities that will help your business the best. That will take getting to know you and your business. However, I can definitely help you pick your most important one. I painstakingly created this awesome chart to help you identify one vital activity.

Lawyer Lawyering
Rapper Rapping
Singer Singing
Painter Painting
Blogger Blogging
Journalist Research & Writing
Treasure Hunter Treasure Hunting
Dancer Dancing
Creative Creating
Student Studying
Real Estate Agent Prospecting
Comedian Practicing Jokes
Writer Writing

Find your key activity and just do it. It blows my mind how many artists I know that have never put out art. Tell yourself that you are what you want to be and do what those people do. I am a writer and I write the best articles. I will wake up and write again tomorrow because that’s what writers do. I hope you do your thing too, whatever it is. 🙂

TL;DR

[bctt tweet=”80% of your harvest comes from just one to three activities.”]

Much like how 20% of peapods contain 80% of the overall peas in a garden, 80% of your harvest come from just one to three activities. Identify these activities and punt everything else. These activities are often the hardest to do because it is difficult to create rare and meaningful work. Do it anyway.

Download Our “Vital Few” Worksheet

We’ve prepared a worksheet with three vital exercises (see what I did there?) to help you better understand the law of the vital few and apply it to your business.

Get Yours Here

Further Reading

Brian
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