The 80/20 of Your Life: How to Do Less and Get More of What Matters

We all get the same 24 hours in a day. So how is it that some people produce so much and create so much success with their hours, while others work hard, stay busy, and somehow never really get anywhere, so that at the end of the year nothing much has changed?

It turns out there's a secret to this, and it was discovered hundreds of years ago. Once you understand it, it can completely change your life. Once I learnt it, everything shifted for me, and it's why I teach it to all my students as one of the most important principles in the world.

It's called the 80/20 law. You could also call it the law of the vital few. Another way to say it is simply this: only a few things matter, and almost everything else makes no real difference. Let's get into how it works.

What is the 80/20 rule, in plain terms?

The 80/20 rule says that roughly 20% of what you do creates about 80% of your results, while the other 80% of your effort produces only about 20%. It's also called the Pareto Principle, after the economist who noticed that 20% of the people owned 80% of the land, and then found the same lopsided pattern everywhere he looked.

In my words from the teaching:

"A few things — very few things — you do each day get you an excellent result, really add huge value to your life. While most, 80% of what you do, is essentially a waste of time."

It applies to everything. You wear about 20% of your clothes most of the time. You email the same 20% of people. A few relationships bring you most of your joy; one or two bring most of your stress. Once you see it, you see it everywhere, and that's the beginning of getting your life back.

Mud, gold, and diamond — a simpler way to see it

Numbers get abstract, so I use three words instead.

Mud is the 80%, the busy, low-value stuff that gets you almost nowhere and sometimes drags you backward. "Spending time in this 80% stuff is literally like wading around in sticky, heavy mud — falling over, getting dirty, confused, messy."

Gold is the 20%, the activities that create most of the good in your life. Once you find your gold, you do more of it.

Diamond is the 1% inside the gold, the very few things that matter most of all. "The diamond is the 20% inside the 20%. It makes even the gold look like mud."

Students feel the relief the moment they sort their life this way:

"I loved the 80/20 principle — the mud, the gold, the diamond, finding the 1% in the 20%. Every time we let go of the old, we create space for something new." — Veeke V., Awakened Academy student

"I made a detailed list of my gold, diamonds, and the mud… one big aha moment had to do with my ego stacking unnecessary things and 'obligations' into my life." — Silas R., Awakened Academy student

Why does being busy feel like progress when it isn't?

Because we unconsciously believe that ticking things off a list is the same as creating results. It usually isn't.

"Ticking off a list doesn't mean you are creating results… most of the time it's just doing busy stuff. Someone might be writing tons of books but never publish any — so they're not getting a result."

A result is a real, tangible change in your life, like a finished book or a calmer mind. Results-based thinking means getting clear on the result you actually want, then finding the few actions that create it, and cutting the rest. One student described the click:

"I've learned to view life completely differently with the 80/20 principle… the gold and diamond actions are where my life improves. I catch myself going in the mud and remind myself: how do you want to spend your time and energy? Do you want to see results?" — Cait S., Awakened Academy student

"I realised I have always been wading through the mud, not working with the gold or the diamonds — and therefore burning out, feeling inauthentic, and getting depressed as a result. I know what I need to do now." — Leni M., Awakened Academy student

The trap: chasing the state through a hundred extra steps

Here's what most of us are really doing. We work hard to get money, to buy things, to feel a certain way. But the thing we actually want was never the money or the stuff. It's the state underneath, peace or freedom. And very often there's a much shorter path to that state.

I learned this the hard way at seventeen, scrubbing pots in a hot, stinky kitchen:

"I wanted the money so I could buy drugs and alcohol, so I could feel good and escape the feeling that my life sucked — especially because I had to work hard in that damn kitchen. So I kept going back to the kitchen, to get the money, to buy the drugs, to feel better about how horrible my life was."

Then at eighteen I realised I could reach that same state of peace through meditation, for free, any time I wanted, and the whole exhausting loop collapsed. "I claimed back hours and hours out of my day, just like that." That's results thinking: find the state you actually want, and cut out the steps that don't lead to it.

There's an old line I keep close: "Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell." Running around more, more, more isn't the path. Doing less of what matters is.