I’ll cut to the chase. There are three reasons why the Pareto Principle is incorrect. Their implications are far reaching.
The first is human working memory.
The second is limited time.
The third is that the 80/20 statistic is a made up number, but we all knew that.
Let’s start with the third reason. 80% of results come from 20% of effort. Duh, not true, we just use that as a rule of thumb to think about effort and progress within a new paradigm. What it really means is: review your effort and determine what efforts of yours are disproportionately moving you forward, and which ones aren’t. Then, stop doing the ones that aren’t and focus on the ones that are.
It’s very important to be able to shift your perspective to be able to better understand your current strategies and invest or adjust them as needed. I think the Paraeto principle is a great thought experiment to help highlight things you have been doing that were not readily apparent.
That said, the Long Tail theory, in economic Pareto Principle terms is that each individual within 20% of a given market has a disproportionately larger share of the market than each individual within the remaining 80%. That said, it’s also expected that the larger 20% is a significantly more competitive…
