The 80/20 Principle

The 80/20 Principle — that 80 per cent of results flow from just 20 per cent of the causes — is the one true principle of highly effective people and organizations.

At the heart of the 80/20 Principle is a counter intuitive yet prevalent fact — the profound imbalance, loopsidedness and lack of correspondence between effort and reward — what scientists call non-linearity. The universe is wonky, yet we still expect an equal ratio of cause to effect. When things don't work out this way, we often refuse to notice. Our blinkers subvert our effectiveness.

The 80/20 Principle can transform your life, your organization, our society: not by applying a panacea, but by working with rather than against the grain of the universe.

• Part One: Overture
1. Welcome to the 80/20 Principle
2. How to Think 80/20
• Part Two: Corporate Success Needn't Be a Mystery
3. The Underground Cult
4. Why Your Strategy Is Wrong
5. Simple Is Beautiful
6. Hooking the Right Customers
7. The Top 10 Business Uses of the 80/20 Principle
8. The Vital Few Give Success to You
• Part Three: Work Less, Earn and Enjoy More
9. Being Free
10. Time Revolution
11. You Can Always get What You Want
12. With a Little help From Our Friends
13. Intelligent and Lazy
14. Money, Money, Money
15. The Seven Habits of Happiness
• Part Four: Crescendo
16. Progress Regained

Brilliant and well written. Need to read it a few more times.