Vital few Trivial many

What could you do more of?

The concept of the “vital few and trivial many” is a principle that states a small number of factors account for the majority of the effects or results. It is also known as the Pareto Principle or the 80/20 Rule, which more specifically states that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. 

The core idea is to identify and focus your resources on the “vital few”—the high-impact factors—rather than spreading your effort across the “trivial many,” which produce only a small portion of the overall outcome. 

This is widely used technique to narrow down on the causes and reach the solution. I have extensively used this technique during my professional career. Very powerful technique for problem solving.

This principle was developed for use in industrial problem solving but it has been universally accepted as powerful tool to be applied in daily life.

Let me share an example from my MBA class. It was my first ever MBA class as a professor and I was nervous. When I entered the classroom, it was full of students approximately 60 of them. And there was chaos in the classroom. For me it was difficult to carry on the lecture. I glanced through the classroom and decided to apply 80/10 rule. I called 4 students from back benches and asked them to sign the attendance and leave the class. They happily did that and the class was completely silent and ready for the lecture. I continued the lecture and finished the class of 90 minutes peacefully. This is the power of 80/20 rule.

In the same way, we have lots of priorities on hand leading to chaos and confusion. When you encounter such problems, use this principle.

Coming to the prompt, I wish to work more for the community. Currently the community work is being done on need basis. But wish to start the initiative which will help the society at large. My wife will also join me post her retirement in next year. We intend to work for the schools in remote areas.

Thank you dear readers for stopping by

Stay happy and keep smiling 😊