Pareto distribution in life
By Kumar Vikrant
Pareto distribution is a power-law probability distribution named after Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), an Italian economist, civil engineer and sociologist. Despite being a typical mathematical function, the Pareto principle appears to apply to various walks of life and phenomena such as scientific and society-related observations.
Colloquially called the 80/20 rule, the law came into existence when Pareto observed that 80 percent of Italian land was owned by 20 percent of the population and later peculiarly found the law to hold for various other scientific, industrial and socioeconomic phenomena.
Pareto distribution can be boiled down to how the small things give the most significant results as a general rule of thumb. The exact 80/20 ratio is not the primary point; instead, the key is the imbalance or inequality between effort and output.
The Pareto principle can be understood as prioritizing critical things for general walks of life, and efficient work habits boost individual productivity and output quality. Other generalized examples include that one only walks on a minority of roads in a given city in their lifetime, only a tiny fraction of clothes from the wardrobe are worn frequently, and out of all the apps on the smartphone, only a few are used most of the time.
What I usually recommend to people who are not efficient at multitasking or are prone to anxiety is that focusing one's efforts and energy on the things that bring us value and joy should be the primary goal. Stop and think about your daily life and activities. If you do such an exercise, you will inadvertently conclude that the minority of the tasks you perform in a day bring the most returns over the long term. Now cut down the things you do that are not that important for your well-being. You will then find yourself suddenly with ample time to do the things you enjoy or the most meaningful activities in your life. Individual productivity suddenly skyrockets.
I often wondered how certain people were seemingly able to manage various things and activities regularly at excellent efficiency. Later I found that highly efficient people organize their lives meticulously to squeeze out every ounce of the time they can manage and then fully commit to the things that bring value to their lives. In other words, the Pareto principle is applied to everyday life to maximize efficiency. The result is boosted productivity (often correlated with economic gain), an enhanced sense of meaning, contentedness and joy in life, and a more significant chunk of quality time to spend with the family (as the unnecessary activities were cut out from the schedule).
Of course, discipline is the critical factor that ensures whether a given individual can fully use the Pareto principle to optimize productivity. With practice, such a feat is indeed possible. I understand that given our proclivity to “waste” time on useless pursuits, adopting the Pareto principle in its full force can be challenging. However, people usually have no idea how remarkably efficient a disciplined individual can be. The high-productivity individuals fully versed in the utilization of the Pareto principle are a thing of beauty, or ubermensch (superhuman), in the Nietzschean vocabulary.
Kumar Vikrant (kvikrant071@gmail.com; https://www.kumarvikrant.com) is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul.