DISQUS

St. Etienne... as in "It's only spring time"?

Well, first of all, I commend you for questioning an idea that is often taken at face value.

The way I understand it, the 80/20 rule is a means of prioritizing. The principle behind it is that all activities are not equally valuable and if you chart your activities, a smaller number will be more valuable. And that what establishes greater value of an activity is its long-term benefit.

In terms of your freelance writing, we might state that the most valuable activity would be: to get paid the most amount of money for the shortest period of time with the greatest residual income. I did a quick chart of these three variables relating to your freelance business. After looking at the numbers, I simplified the activities into blogging and magazine article writing because the magazine article was the only variable. In terms of time, money and residual income all of the blog articles prioritize the same.

The magazine article is in the middle of your income, at the bottom of your 'time spent', but it is at the top your residual income. The reason it is at the top is that one published article gains you credibility and notoriety which exponentially increase your clientele and income per article. So all that time writing queries is actually worth thousands of dollars more than any single article you could write.

If you spent the majority of your time querying magazines instead of writing you would starve to death. But the effort you put into getting published increases the value of your writing over-all. It is this basic dynamic that the 80/20 rule points out.

But, then, most of us do not give it this much consideration. I hadn't until I read your article. ;)

I can't immediately think of anything I would out-source. What I did find interesting is the precision that you apply to time management. I often feel unprepared for my day and behind before I even get started. I appreciate the inspiration.