The Inner Edit: Focus, Constraint, and the Trade

In his book The 4-Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss writes about two concepts that, when combined, can supercharge your efficacy. The first is Pareto Principle, and the second is Parkinson's Law. Before we dive in, it is important to consider these two “truisms”:

Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.
Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.

He goes on to say that what you do is infinitely more important than how you do it. Which circles back to our writing from yesterday on making decisions. Don’t get caught up in how you will do something—if it’s good enough, if it’s perfect—just decide what you will do.

Pareto’s Law essentially says that 80% of outputs result from 20% of inputs. 80% of our revenue comes from the top 20% of our clients. 80% of our happiness comes from the top 20% of our relationships—and the opposite is true as well. 80% of our misery can come from a mere 20% of the clients or people we let in. And the skew is often even more severe—90/10, 95/5.

Ferriss says it well: “Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.” Give yourself 24 hours for a task, and that imminent deadline channels your focus into powerful productivity. Give yourself a month, and the weight of it becomes a looming monster. And “the end product is almost inevitably of equal or higher quality due to greater focus.”

So what this means is that if you pair the two laws, they produce a synergistic, combined effect—one that increases productivity while improving output.

Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (Pareto’s Law).
Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson’s Law).

Another concept to add is the idea of “being in motion” versus “taking action.” To give you an example—when one has a goal, there are plenty of things that need to be done to prepare for that goal. Take writing this blog post. I need to come up with a name for the blog, decide on a medium, etc. Those are necessary, but they are not the most important. Taking action is getting up in the morning, putting fingers to keys, and pressing publish. Both need to happen, but the problem is it is sometimes easier to trick yourself into thinking that all the time and effort you put into the “being in motion” arena is getting you closer to your goals, when in reality, it can just be a form of procrastination.

What this means for my day: I protect the morning hours.

Emma Grede in her book Start With Yourself talks about trade-offs. I recently attended an industry conference where I had to make a choice. I LOVE my early morning time and have a disciplined—yet very enjoyable—morning routine. In order to have these early mornings with the capacity and clarity I enjoy, I have to support them the night before: not drinking (as it affects my sleep architecture) and going to bed early.

That’s the trade.

I had a moment one of the evenings where I saw my friends walk by in a group just as I was heading out for bed, and I felt that tinge of… I'm going to miss that moment with them. There are so many great moments of connection that happen in those later happy hour hours. However, I knew I would miss my sacred mornings—and at least right now, I value them too much. I don’t want the trade.

A little wink from the universe happened the next morning. A really key conversation took place—in the gym—with someone who was on the same rhythm that I was on.

The learning was that I was still able to have those key moments of connection that I value so much—and perhaps in an even more elevated way.