Live a minimalist life by applying the divine 80-20 rule

You've probably heard this 80-20 rule at least once in your life. Me too, when hearing this rule, most of us will think: "I know!". But knowing is meaningless if we don't apply it to our lives.

I only really understood this when following a minimalist lifestyle. And I firmly believe that to live a minimalist life effectively, you need to apply this rule.

What is the 80-20 rule?

The 80/20 Rule or Pareto Principle (named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto) operates based on the premise: 80 % results are caused by 20% causes. This is also a common rule in many areas of life.

For example, with business:

80% of a company's profits come from 20% of customers.

80% complaints against a company also came from 20% customers.

80% The company's performance comes from its 20% employees.

For example, with the relationship:

80% daily time spent with 20% people you know.

80% your interactions on Facebook for your 20% Facebook friends.

The meaning of this rule is not the accuracy of 80% or 20% but the proportion of important things in your life. Let's understand that there are always a small number of important things that will greatly affect your life.

Why does the 80-20 Rule affect the minimalist lifestyle?

We all know that, Live minimalist is to eliminate unnecessary or unwanted things, creating a neat living space, thereby making life simpler.

Minimalist living will certainly lose its effectiveness if we "wrongly" eliminate important things in our lives. So how do you know exactly what is unnecessary or not needed?

That's thanks to the 80-20 rule, we will look for unimportant things that only affect our lives and eliminate them.

When you choose to live a minimalist lifestyle, we are applying the 80-20 rule (consciously or unconsciously) to our lives.

Previously, even though I knew, I rarely proactively applied the 80-20 rule. It only lasted a few days and then I forgot about it, as if it had never appeared in my life. But when I started living a minimalist life, I always thought about what was important to me, what was not important and used the 80-20 rule to choose as an evaluation criterion.

And so, thanks to the minimalist lifestyle, I apply 80-20 more. Thanks to 80-20, I can choose important and unimportant things to make accurate choices and be more confident in my decisions.

The relationship between 80-20 and living a minimalist life is like a couple moving forward in class. One is good at nature, one is good at society. When it's time for the Math test, the student naturally lets the student copy the lesson, but when it comes to the History test, it's the opposite. In the end, both of them helped each other get high final scores!

Apply the 80-20 Rule to minimalist living. 

The 80-20 rule applies to many aspects of life, and minimalist living also applies to many aspects of life, not just furniture. Therefore, when combined together, it can be applied to all aspects of life ^^.

Minimize furniture and materials.

80% Your essential needs in life are only in 20% appliances.

20% clothes in the closet get you 80% every day of the week.

20% kitchen utensils you use 80% while cooking.

80% time using phone or computer, you only use 20% capacity (configuration) of the device.

…

Think and choose what is important 20% to keep and get rid of the furniture and materials that have little impact on your life. For example, clothes that are rarely worn in life, items that are rarely used in the kitchen such as pots and pans, and unnecessary machinery.

When thinking about buying an item, really think about how much it affects your life. Is it necessary to buy a high-configuration phone or computer when I normally only use the 20% at its capacity? Is it necessary to buy an additional oil-free fryer when you only use it 20% in your meals?

Minimize relationships.

20% people you know influence 80% your life.

20% your colleagues 80% influence your career.

20% people at the drinking table are people you need to drink to create relationships, 80% means it's okay if you don't need to drink.

…

Once you identify these things, you will not be too confused or worried when minimizing unnecessary relationships that do not affect your life much.

One thing I see is that many people confuse minimalism with cutting off relationships or making enemies. We just reduce unnecessary drinking, meetings, and chatting.

Previously, I saw a friend (I believe he was very young) asking everyone in the association if they would "disown" their relatives at home because it would be uncomfortable to meet them during Tet, your story. The idea is quite long, but I don't think it's a big deal. It's just that he doesn't want family gatherings, likes to stay home and read books, has different views from previous generations, etc. Then relatives are not family. Family should be simplified, just family...

So you want to cut off? They were blood related, and yet we only met once a year when we returned for Tet holiday without being able to get together happily. I don't have enough time to read books all year long, right?

Minimize Social Networks and Internet

20% the number of friends on social networks accounts for 80% of your interactions.

20% the number of pages you like gives 80% necessary information for you.

20% number of Facebook groups you spend 80% interacting with.

20% friends on social networks really care about you, 80% is just beef groin.

20% the news you read brings 80% the information you receive.

…

From these things, we should think about whether we really need to use all social networks from Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Zalo,... or not? Or is just 1 or 2 social networks enough?

You like a bunch of Pages, join hundreds of groups, but you only need 20% of that group and page number to get 80% of information. Most of the remaining information is duplicate and unnecessary information.

You make friends, follow thousands of people, scroll through newsfeed all day, but among them, only 20% is interested in you. Among those 20%, only 20% is the one that affects your life. So why are you interested in the other 80% twice?

In the past, I also often joined groups and liked the page because I thought there would be a lot of necessary information for my expertise and career. But then I realized that it was just due to a thirst for information and fear of missing out.

After that, I unliked, exited the groups, only left a few pages and groups that I often interacted with and found everything to be great. Work is even better because I have more time to think instead of scrolling, and have my own subjective opinions, not influenced by others.

Minimalism in skills and work.

20% Your daily actions determine 80%'s success at work.

20% effective working time during the day to solve 80% necessary tasks.

20% skills determine 80% success in your work.

…

Once you identify these things, you can focus on the important things during your productive times. You can spend 20% of this productive time solving 80% of work.

Instead of learning too many different skills, you only focus on developing the most important skills to an elite level to bring success at work.

For example, I am a Marketing person, my strength is Digital, I will focus on developing Digital Marketing. Digital Marketing is divided into many small branches such as SEO, Content, running Google Ads, running Facebook Ads,... I will focus on the most important area for me which is running Ads instead of rambling on to different jobs...

Try to think about what skills are most important in your work, in your success in the future that you want to achieve!

Minimalism in personal finances

20% Your income can affect your financial future. That is your savings & investments.

20% The amount of money you spend is really necessary and affects your life. The rest is mostly waste and can be cut down.

80% the money you earn comes from 20% working.

….

This 80-20 principle is being applied a lot in financial and investment issues such as Forex or Crypto and brings me positive results by focusing on the most important things.

Everything I wrote above are just a few illustrative examples to make it easier for you to understand. You can be creative and apply the rules to anything in your life. But remember that the 80-20 ratio is relative and is only quantitative to help you understand that some things are more important than most others.

Your life will definitely be more "quality" with this minimalist lifestyle and 80/20 rule. Are you successfully applying this rule? Please comment and share so everyone knows!