The 80/20 Principle Library

[MTF]

The 80/20 principle, also known as the Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule, states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. The rule applies to many aspects of life, including economics, business, sports, etc. For a quick overview, read Wikipedia's page on it: Pareto principle - Wikipedia

I started this thread to share useful resources about this principle to help you accomplish your goals more easily - or just enjoy your life more - thanks to simplifying it via the 80/20 rule.

This isn't just a little stupid rule stating the obvious fact - there are countless, sometimes weird, applications of it that can help achieve better results in less time and with less energy.

1. Books

By far the best author on the topic is British multimillionaire Richard Koch. He has written several books on the topic. The best ones are:

The 80/20 Principle - the original book, with the first part going deep into how to apply it in business and then other parts addressing personal life and other things. Ignore the negative reviews - there's a lot of thought-provoking, and for some probably controversial, stuff in there.

Living the 80/20 Way - offers additional insights on how to apply the principle to live better.

After Richard Koch, the best books are:

80/20 Sales and Marketing by Perry Marshall - some very powerful 80/20 concepts applied to sales and marketing. A must-read.

Essentialism by Greg McKeown - I consider Richard's books better because they're written in a less philosophical and more practical style. Greg's book is still pretty good, but IMO it's better to start with Koch.

The One Thing by Gary Keller - extremely solid concept of The One Thing, but with some unnecessary chapters which are related to the main topic, but not really talk about simplicity.

2. Articles

Richard Koch's blog is really good, though sometimes he gets too philosophical there: Blog

Some of his best articles:
HOW TO WORK LESS AND MAKE MORE
ARE YOU A HAMSTER?
HOW TO STOP BEING A HAMSTER
TIME REVOLUTION
http://richardkoch.net/2013/01/how-much-is-an-hour-of-your-time-worth/
http://richardkoch.net/2014/09/how-to-do-nothing-achieve-everything/
http://richardkoch.net/2018/11/liberate-yourself-from-the-protestant-work-ethic/

A good interview with Richard:
https://medium.com/learning-for-life/dont-waste-your-time-on-the-trivial-1a51c7dc3cc

3. Quotes

Here are some various thought-provoking quotes:

“We should act less. Action drives out thought. It is because we have so much time that we squander it.” – Richard Koch

“Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.” – Tim Ferriss

“Most people who become rich through business do so by using other people’s ideas, not their own.” – Richard Koch

“Identify the times you are most happy, and expand them as much as possible. Identify the times you are least happy, and reduce them as much as possible.” – Richard Koch

“Generally, the most profitable customers have been customers for a long time. Gaining new customers is very expensive.” – Richard Koch

“Make the most of those few ‘lucky streaks’ in our life where we are at our creative peak and the stars line up to guarantee success.” – Richard Koch

“Time is like that: cussed when we try to speed up, a dear friend when we slow down.” – Richard Koch

4. Exercises

Some exercises I regularly do, particularly when I find myself losing focus and no longer religiously following the 80/20 principle in my life. It's important to emphasize that 80/20 is a mindset that needs to be cultivated, just like you need to go to the gym regularly if you want to stay in shape.

• 80/20 analysis - analyze what produces best results and what the biggest waste of resources is. How can you double down on what works best and eliminate the unessential stuff?
• The One Thing question - ask yourself the main question from Gary Keller's book: What's the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
  
• Eliminate something from your life - it sounds stupid, but even throwing away an article of clothing you no longer wear is a good way to remind yourself to focus on what's most important.
• Fast for a full day - it's good for your health, and it gives you some additional clarity and a lot of time to think how to simplify your life.
• Stop taking action - if possible, take a few days off and occupy your mind with something else. Sometimes we're too close to the challenges we're facing and we fail to see an obvious, simple solution. Your subconscious will still work on the problem in the background while you do something else, ideally something enjoyable so you can recharge.
• Let go of control and ego - the number one obstacle preventing you from achieving more while doing less is yourself. If you want to control everything, you'll never be able to delegate effectively. If you think that you're the only person who can do something well, you'll never delegate at all - so you'll be stuck doing everything yourself. Even if you're a solopreneur and nobody can do your job, at least simplify other aspects of your life (for example, hire a maid).
• Think of long-term profitability - focus on projects and business models that are repeatable and produce consistent, long-term income over projects that produce a one-off result. The latter makes you a hamster, stuck on the wheel of work and unable to slow down because you always need to seek a new source of income. Always have in mind your hourly rate and resist the temptation to think short-term. For example, you can spend 100 hours on a project that generates $10,000 once (your hourly rate is $100), or you can spend 100 hours on a project that generates $1000 a month forever (your hourly rate is just $10 the first month, but after 10 months reaches $100 and then still continues growing without any additional work).
• Destroy and rebuild everything from the ground up (in your mind) - if you lost everything you have now, how would you rebuild it? This is an useful exercise to review the most important fundamentals as well as open yourself to new ideas or maybe even discover that what you're doing now is just no longer working anymore and you're stuck in the past. It's often hard to see these obvious things due to the status quo bias (in which any change from the baseline is considered a loss).

 

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[RazorCut]

Great post @MTF

By far the best author on the topic is British multimillionaire Richard Koch. He has written several books on the topic. The best ones are:

The 80/20 Principle - the original book, with the first part going deep into how to apply it in business and then other parts addressing personal life and other things. Ignore the negative reviews - there's a lot of thought-provoking, and for some probably controversial, stuff in there.

I can vouch for this one. It's always near to hand even though I bought it back in 1997.

Another exercise to add in is walking (or running). The brain becomes so much more creative in a moving environment. You will be able to think clearer, make connections you wouldn't normally make and gain all sorts of insights that are not available to you in a static environment such as sitting at a desk or lying on a couch.

This is not hocus pocus but scientifically proven fact. (Stanford University research report here)

Personally I would say find a park or go out into the countryside for best results and also don't expect great insights within a few hundred yards. I hike about 4 miles a day 3-7 days a week and sometimes the most enlightening moments come a mile from home.

Also listening to podcasts or music while walking/running doesn't kill the creative effect but I find it does dull it significantly.

 

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[Andy Black]

We should act less.

I agree with this. One of my most productive years was when I went for a walk every evening. If I had a two hour window to work that evening, I’d spend 45 minutes of it going for a stroll, and then do the right thing when I got home.


I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but when someone asks how things are going here in Ireland and the UK then most people say “Busy!” .... as if that’s the metric to measure against.


Two quotes I love from Blaise Brosnan are:

“The market doesn’t pay for activity.”

“You can’t invoice for input.”

No point being a busy fool, doing he wrong side of the 80/20, and doing the same thing all the time expecting a different result.


I love Perry Marshall’s book, and James Schramko’s book “Work Less. Earn More.”

In Jame’s book he encourages people to “spend an hour a day staring at the sea” (he’s a surfer, so choose your poison).


And the principle behind The ONE Thing is so helpful too: What ONE Thing can you do that will make everything else unnecessary or easier? If you don’t know it, then finding it IS your ONE Thing.


It also comes back to “Your desk is for executing, not thinking.” (Justin Jackson)

And that “Thinking is the hardest thing to do, which is why so few people do it”. (Henry Ford)

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Also in the 80/20 realm...

What you shove in your mouth is 80% of your fitness...
What you do at the gym is 20%...

MARKED NOTABLE, almost missed it.

 

[ZCP]

Great post @MTF
Another exercise to add in is walking (or running). The brain becomes so much more creative in a moving environment. You will be able to think clearer, make connections you wouldn't normally make and gain all sorts of insights that are not available to you in a static environment such as sitting at a desk or lying on a couch.

Be sure to 'set the table' ..... review information beforehand, or even better, the evening before and sleep on it. Let that subconscious work on it a while. Then stay in bed when you wake up and just think a little. Then keep it going while you exercise. You'll invent time travel in the shower that follows. Write it down, send yourself a note for when you get to your desk.

I have conquered many of my toughest problems using this method.

 

[MTF]

So here's a question: How do we balance between thinking, overthinking, and doing? In some ways, the 80/20 principle is on the other end of the spectrum of the "take massive action" refrain which is often espoused for entrepreneurial ventures.

Imagine it like this. For simplicity, let's take 10 tasks:

A - makes you $3/hour
B - makes you $3/hour
C - makes you $7/hour
D - makes you $10/hour
E - makes you $12/hour
F - makes you $15/hour
G -makes you $20/hour
H -makes you $25/hour
I - makes you $100/hour
J -makes you $300/hour

Non 80/20 "massive action": 10 hours a day on each task equally, so one hour per task. You make $495 that day. Your average hourly rate ends up being $49.5.

80/20 smart action: you analyze very carefully every task and its output. Yes, this takes time and it's often not that obvious and easy. But once you figure out that tasks I and J together (20%) generate 80.8% of results, here's what happens:

1. You figure out a way to eliminate or delegate other tasks.
2. You focus on tasks I and J for 5 hours a day
3. You make $990 a day. That's double the amount in half the time. Your average hourly rate is $198. You make much more and work much less.

Of course, it's nice in theory but in practice you need to spend a lot of time identifying what works best. But nobody said that cultivating the 80/20 mindset is easy, particularly in the beginning when you have to go against your basic instincts.

I've got one project that's promising and interesting, but it's in the beginning stages, and requires a lot of hours to test, iterate, sell, get feedback, etc. How else would you bring something to market without actually putting in the hours?

As above, you put in the hours but you're very judicious with how you invest time. I believe it comes down to better research and really thinking through what you plan to do instead of doing whatever and seeing what sticks. Also, 80/20 is about dedicating yourself to creative tasks and thinking instead of menial jobs that usually don't give much leverage and big results.

What's the best way to test? How often to iterate? What's the best way to sell? Where can you get the best feedback quickly? If you're burned out because you just work, work, work and don't think, you won't find the answers to these questions easily.

Makes me think of “give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

The 80/20 guy spends 4 hours sharpening the axe and then two hours chopping down the tree (the actual physical effort). Because he was smart and didn't expend energy needlessly, he'll be able to chop another tree the next day. The other guy spends 6 hours chopping down the tree and can't lift his arm the next day.

Or to give another example: take two climbers wanting to climb a mountain. For the sake of this example, none of them is looking for a challenge and difficulty as climbers often do. They simply want to get to the top using their own legs.

The regular one packs her gear and heads to the mountain. Why waste time studying possible ascent routes? Better to take action now, figure things out along the way and be done as soon as possible. This is how an entrepreneur following the "take action" crowd would behave.

The 80/20 climber studies maps, topography, and reaches out to other climbers who've already scaled the mountain. While the regular climber is already taking action, the 80/20 is still planning.

At this point, using the often preached on this forum message of taking action instead of thinking, you can say: the first climber gets it! Action all the way! Meanwhile, the second one is a wannabe climber. Just talking and no action.

But then the 80/20 climber is done planning and heads to the mountain armed with all the knowledge to scale the mountain in the easiest, safest way possible (that's the difference between a wannabe 80/20 thinker and a real 80/20 thinker: the latter takes action on their plans).

In the end, the regular climber not only struggles a lot to get to the top, but exposes herself to unnecessary danger. "Massive action" business gurus would commend the regular climber for taking massive action. Motivational gurus would commend her for going hard. But there was an easier, more efficient way to save your resources and achieve the same goal! Isn't it silly?

I can understand that once things are up and running, you can optimize, subtract, simplify, through thinking and slow work, but wouldn't the guy taking 80 hours of action beat the guy that's thinking for 60 hours on any new venture? Even if the action person wastes the majority of that time, he will more likely stumble upon success by brute force.

The problem is that if you take 80 hours of action, you don't have time to think. And we don't come up with the greatest ideas when we work. It happens when we're relaxed, when our brains are free to go in random directions and make connections that are impossible to spot in a tense mental state.

Makes me think of yet another quote:

Henry Ford’s reaction to a consultant who questioned why he paid $50,000 a year to someone who spent most of his time with his feet on his desk. “Because a few years ago that man came up with something that saved me $2,000,000,” he replied. “And when he had that idea his feet were exactly where they are now.”

I agree it's not sustainable to do that long term, but what is everyone's opinion on for the beginning stages of a venture?

I believe that the way we start something is often the way we'll approach it over the long term. If you decide to to use brute force in the beginning instead of making strategic decisions, when is the moment you transition to the latter? And most importantly, why not think smart from the beginning?

 

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[Andy Black]

Also listening to podcasts or music while walking/running doesn't kill the creative effect but I find it does dull it significantly.

100%. If you're always listening to “informative” podcasts then you can't hear yourself think. Often the answer is already within you.

 

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[MTF]

I did this once studying for a morning exam. Before bed I couldn’t make head nor tail of one particular problem. When I woke it was clear as day.

That's also why studying a little every day is better than studying a lot one day prior to the exam. The brain memorizes information (and I assume that processes it better for problem solving, too) when we're asleep. I guess that's where the phrase "let me sleep on it" comes from.

I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but when someone asks how things are going here in Ireland and the UK then most people say “Busy!” .... as if that’s the metric to measure against.

When people brag how busy they are, I can't help but think that they've lost their priorities in life (if they had them in the first place). There are soooooo many things we don't have to do at all. And that's what's controversial about the 80/20 principle: many people think that those who do little are lazy, even if during one hour they generate much more output than a person working 12 hours.

James Schramko’s book “Work Less. Earn More.”

In Jame’s book he encourages people to “spend an hour a day staring at the sea” (he’s a surfer, so choose your poison).

I considered mentioning his book, too, but in the spirit of the 80/20 decided against it because while it's good, it's not a must-read like the other books I mentioned.

And that “Thinking is the hardest thing to do, which is why so few people do it”. (Henry Ford)

It's uncomfortable, too, because it feels like you're wasting your time while you should be taking action. Which made me remember this post by Richard Koch: TOP 10 – 9 OF 10 : THE PLOTINUS PRINCIPLE

And particularly the most practical implications for everyone posted at the end of this article:

1. Act less, think more.
2. Allow plenty of time for quiet reflection every day. Make this a habit, in a particular place, at a particular time.
3. Await insight.
4. Hone your powers of intuition – by trying less, and opening yourself up to the universe more. Intuition comes in when you let it.
5. Try to become the best possible version of yourself (the exact words I owe to Matthew Kelly – thanks, Matthew). This is not just a matter of opening your soul. It is also – more importantly – a matter of opening your mind, and seeking the most simple, unifying answer.

 

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[rogue synthetic]

Chris Anderson's The Long Tail deserves a mention.

For those that don't mind some heavier thinking and eccentric Lebanese egotism, at least one of Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, or Antifragile are worldview-flippers.

 

[Andy Black]

Some rules of thumb from the 80/20 principle are that:

• 20% will pay 4x as much (from Perry's book)
• 10% will pay 10x as much (James Schramko mentions this a lot. Whether it's derived from 80/20 or not is irrelevant... 80/20 is a rule of thumb anyway.)

 

[Ing]

I love the 20/80 principal.
Why? It brought a big part of freedom into my life.
At the time I began to overthink that, I didn’t know, that it is called that way. I figured out myself.

I have a job, where I am not owning the business, but organisating all of my time and customers.
I call it having the best of the two worlds ( being entrepreneur and being employe)

So it started:
A long time I worked hard, doing every extra mile and earning a quite good 6 figured money. At a time I decided to work less, sure earn less and enjoy life.

I listed the
-customer,
-the weekly spent time for each,
- the earned money at each and
-( and thats the most important point of my overth) the psychological invested energy, which I spent at each customer.

For me that was changing so much:

Surprisingly I had customers on the end of the list I thought to be precious for me.
And I had customers near the top, who I thought I must get rid of.



Now every time, when a colleague came up and requested to get a customer of mine, I didn’t fight that any longer( as I am quite successful in my job, there are many envious) but I gave him a customer from the bottom of my list.

Every new customer was fit into that list and treated that way.
The result was amazing: I don’t have a 50 hour week any more but resulted into a chilled 20-30 hour week.
My salary rose nearly to the 1,5 .





well, I now could enjoy my life, go bike riding 3 half days monday to friday.
Spending the weekend with friends and family.

And what do I idiot do?
I try to start a business.
But thats another thing and doesn’t belong onto that thread.

 

[MTF]

Great tip, @RazorCut. It's another good example of how doing seemingly "nothing" is in fact the most valuable activity you can do.

 

[ZCP]

this was a really good book on 'HOW' to make decisions. Not 'why'. 'How'. Really interesting if you can put politics to the side and read it for methods and ideas.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307590631/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

 

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[Andy Black]

Be sure to 'set the table' ..... review information beforehand, or even better, the evening before and sleep on it. Let that subconscious work on it a while. Then stay in bed when you wake up and just think a little. Then keep it going while you exercise. You'll invent time travel in the shower that follows. Write it down, send yourself a note for when you get to your desk.

I have conquered many of my toughest problems using this method.

I did this once studying for a morning exam. Before bed I couldn’t make head nor tail of one particular problem. When I woke it was clear as day.

 

[Martin Boeddeker]

Great thread. Thanks.
I'd never heard of this guy before. Purely the contention around his style made me curious so I checked him out. While I'm sure he must have a brain to back such a writing style, it does sound a tad pompous.

He is one actually my favorite authors. I've never seen someone thinging as clearly and seeing the world so accurate as Taleb does. He was able to articulate the things that I knew intuitively were right but was never able to express on my own.

Mainly:

- The world is far too complex and we will never the full picture that's why we should look at what survived.
- A lot of things that scientists discover in a lab DO NOT translate into the real world. Often times is far more useful to look ancient wisdom

 

[MTF]

Regarding the 80/20 analysis, one of the exercises I like the most that Richard Koch shares in one of his books is identifying your happiness and unhappiness islands and achievement and desert islands.

He explains it well here: WHAT ARE YOUR HAPPINESS & ACHIEVEMENT ISLANDS?

In short:

Happiness islands are the times when we are happiest, cut off by warm, gently lapping seas, from the worries and woes of the rest of our lives.
(...)
Find yourself a peaceful spot where you can be alone and relax. Now write down all the times you can recall when you were unusually happy. Don’t stop until you have at least half a dozen such times and preferably more.
(...)
Now, what was the common denominator between those times? Was it the person or people you were with? A particular place? An activity? A time you were feeling good for a specific reason? Anything else that applied to at least two or three of your islands?
(...)
But there are also happiness deserts, not jolly desert islands, but real deserts, parched and unforgiving. These are the times when you are emphatically not happy. Identify the common denominators and vow never to let them intrude on your life.

And as for achievement islands:

Identify the times in your life – and in the last week – when you feel you’ve been particularly productive, achieving more of value to yourself and other people in a few minutes than in many hours of lesser work.
(...)
Conversely, large amounts of time can be achievement and happiness deserts. Again, the best way to achieve more is to spend less time achieving little or nothing. Lie fallow. Enjoy yourself. Do what you were doing in the previous achievement islands. Wait for inspiration or opportunity to come. If you are too busy, you will miss the muffled knock of chance, the opening that may come – and go – in a flash.

It's a very useful exercise to begin simplifying your life for more happiness and productivity.

 

[MTF]

A thought-provoking post about strategy from Richard Koch:

SUPERIOR STRATEGY = DIFFERENT STRATEGY | Richard Koch

One of the pleasures of being an author who's written several books is that you can occasionally go back and re-read previous works, and, if they are any good, it's really surprising how much you can teach yourself! Today I picked up a book of mine I haven't re-read for ages – it's called Smart...

richardkoch.net

Love the questions at the end:

• What do you do differently from any other player?
• What investments underpin your difference?
• What is your competitive advantage, precisely?
• What’s your value proposition to customers that they can’t get elsewhere?
• What are the 20% of your customers who make you more than 80% of profits?
• Who are your most profitable customers? At what rate, each year, do they leave you and buy elsewhere? Do you have a plan to raise the retention rate each year, and is it working?
• Who is your main competitor and what are its plans? For an equivalent product or service, what are your costs and prices compared to those of your competitor?
• What is your relative market share in each segment against your main rival? Are you the leader? What is the trend? Do you have star businesses – those where you are number one in market share and which are growing at least ten percent a year? What is the trend in relative market share (your sales divided by those of the largest rival) – are you gaining, holding, or losing? If you are not gaining, what will you do to ensure that you do?
• Do you really know, objectively, what your customers think about your most profitable products/services and your main rival in those products?
• What could you do to simplify your products, either to become much lower cost and price, or to provide products which are easier to use, more useful, and more fun to use than those of any rival?
• Who are the two or three possible new or minor competitors who could be eating your lunch in five years? How do you protect yourself against them?

 

[Ronak]

100%. If you're always listening to “informative” podcasts then you can't hear yourself think. Often the answer is already within you.

I've started going on hour-long morning bike rides over the past 6 months, around 3-4 days a week. I'm guilty of sticking in the earbuds before setting off and consuming more podcasts, only to forget everything I heard later in the day. Recently, I've found myself occasionally taking out the earbuds just to be in the moment, and I've had more insight and clarity coming to me in those moments.

We live in an age of unlimited media, books, gurus, etc. IMO, it is better to pick just 1% and implement that fully, rather than gathering "knowledge" from anywhere while implementing nothing.

So here's a question: How do we balance between thinking, overthinking, and doing? In some ways, the 80/20 principle is on the other end of the spectrum of the "take massive action" refrain which is often espoused for entrepreneurial ventures.

I've got one project that's promising and interesting, but it's in the beginning stages, and requires a lot of hours to test, iterate, sell, get feedback, etc. How else would you bring something to market without actually putting in the hours?

I can understand that once things are up and running, you can optimize, subtract, simplify, through thinking and slow work, but wouldn't the guy taking 80 hours of action beat the guy that's thinking for 60 hours on any new venture? Even if the action person wastes the majority of that time, he will more likely stumble upon success by brute force.

I agree it's not sustainable to do that long term, but what is everyone's opinion on for the beginning stages of a venture?

 

[MTF]

I recently ended up in a (self-inflicted) routine of busyness. At first it felt fine as I was making a lot of progress and feeling important. But eventually my stress levels started going up. I felt pressure every day, trying to squeeze in everything to meet my daily goals.

I have an obsessive personality, so once I add something to my routine, I want to do it to the extreme at the expense of everything else. That may be fine for a few days or maybe a couple of weeks but eventually it kicks you in the butt.

I'm now in the process of yet again simplifying my routine and I thought of this thread.

If you have any new resources on the topic, I'd love to see them.

 

[MTF]

For those that don't mind some heavier thinking and eccentric Lebanese egotism, at least one of Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, or Antifragile are worldview-flippers.

His writing style is horrible. It's anything but simple, but from what I managed to understand he does share some 80/20 ideas.

 

[MTF]

Some tips how to practice lazy intelligence:

AN OLDIE & SHORTY BUT GOODY: THE VON MANSTEIN MATRIX | Richard Koch

"There are only four types of officer. First, there are the lazy, stupid ones. Leave them alone – they do no harm. Second, there are the hard-working intelligent ones. They make excellent staff officers, ensuring that every detail is properly considered. Third, there are the hard-working, stupid...

richardkoch.net

 

[MTF]

It's been on my mind recently all the time:

Work the Least for It

The quality of our decisions is paramount in the modern age, because we’re all leveraged. You can be leveraged through code, community, media, capital, labor and other ways. If you’re smart, you leverage every decision you make. If Warren Buffett makes the right decision 85% of the time and...

nav.al

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD0IzQhxH_0

 

[Timmy C]

Finding the 80/20 is so essential.

I used to spend all day online to hit my growth targets, and it was depressing.

I have now figured out the best times to post to get the most engagement and follows on social media.

Now I spend 3 hours a day on social media, and my growth is only slightly down.

Just freed up 5 hours of time!

 

[Andy Black]

The way people tend to work most effectively, especially in knowledge work, is to sprint as hard as they can while they feel inspired to work, and then rest. They take long breaks.

It’s more like a lion hunting and less like a marathoner running. You sprint and then you rest. You reassess and then you try again. You end up building a marathon of sprints.

Yep. I’ve even got a post for that!

• "You can't break tackles at marathon pace"

 

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[MTF]

Fun animated story showing how much energy we sometimes squander for little return:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amS0u15AL14

 

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[MTF]

 

[MTF]

 

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[Martin Boeddeker]

Great thread. One book that came to mind that I still wanted to read:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1578645018/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

Besides the only book, that kind of goes into that direction is Ray Dalio's Principles and Tim Ferriss 4-Hour-Work-Week.

It's kind of shocking that there are not that many more good books about this topic that I know.

 

[Martin Boeddeker]

His writing style is horrible. It's anything but simple, but from what I managed to understand he does share some 80/20 ideas.

He has his own writing style for sure. I really like it.

 

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[GregDott]

Great thread. Thanks.

He has his own writing style for sure. I really like it.

I'd never heard of this guy before. Purely the contention around his style made me curious so I checked him out. While I'm sure he must have a brain to back such a writing style, it does sound a tad pompous.