28 Principle: You must be aware of the 28 principle

People who have regular reading habits should have heard of the 28 principle (if you've never heard of it before, then your knowledge is too narrow to suspect). But there are a lot of people who know the 28 principles that don't (or are not good at) using. The direct consequence is that you spend a lot of time and effort on a variety of things, but the rewards are small. Since the principle is very practical, I'm going to write a series to talk about the topic.

What is the 28 principle

By convention, first say what is the 28 principle (if you already know the 28 principle, you can skip this part). 28 principle (aka 80/20 principle, Pareto principle) was first proposed by the Italian economist Pareto, the specific definition please see the following excerpt to the concept of wiki.

The 28 principle is a law that has far-reaching implications for improving human efficiency. is to allow a limited amount of time to produce more results. The 28 principle tells people that there is a general imbalance between input and output, effort and harvest, cause and outcome. Less input, more output can be achieved, and small efforts can achieve great results; The key minority is often the main factor determining the output, profitability and success of the organization as a whole.

In layman's words, it is the asymmetry of cause and effect. 20% causes 80% of the results, while the other 80% causes only 20% of the results. Of course, the "28 open" ratio mentioned here is not absolute, from "37" to "19 open" is possible.

In order to give a little knowledge of the people who do not know it, I give a few examples:

• A handful of wealthy people have mastered most of the wealth of society (Pareto is the principle found in the distribution of wealth)
• Most of the company's sales results are created by a small number of sales people
• Most of the carpet wear is concentrated in a few places
• Most developers use only a handful of programming languages, and a large number of programming languages are rarely used
• Most bugs in software are generated by a few developers

How to use

First, the key point of this principle is that it challenges the traditional idea. For example: As a child, the teacher often teaches, "one point pays a penny". In mathematical terms, the pay and return are linearly correlated. Many people are affected by this (perhaps subconsciously), and are accustomed to allocating time and energy to deal with problems on average. The result is that I put a lot of money in front of me, with little return. So, before you apply the 28 principle, you have to change the mindset of your mind and look at the problems around you in an "unequal" perspective. (about changing the mindset, the key is to rely on their own, I can not help too much)

Second, you have to learn how to differentiate between important and minor. This belongs to the methodological problem. I have written a few posts are related to this aspect, such as: "How to choose IT technology books" and "Do the right Thing", will continue to write related posts, hope to help everyone.

Finally, to impress everyone, let's look at a quote from Steve Jobs:

Every day I ask myself in the mirror:
"If today is the last day of my life, will I do what I intend to do today?" ”
If the answer is negative for several days in a row, then I have to change something.

28 Principle: You must be aware of the 28 principle