I’ve decided to highlight Pareto’s Principle in this post — not because it’s new, but because it’s uncomfortable.
The idea is simple:
80% of your success comes from 20% of your effort 80% of your results come from 20% of your clients, activities, or decisions
Simple doesn’t mean easy.
Because most of us still spend our time trying to make the other 80% work harder.
Why This Is Worth Repeating (Again and Again)
If something is responsible for the majority of your results, it deserves the majority of your attention.
Yet we do the opposite.
We spread ourselves thin.
We try to please everyone.
We chase marginal gains instead of doubling down on what already works.
And then we wonder why progress feels slow.
The truth is: focus feels risky.
But dilution is far riskier.
Amazon Didn’t Win by Doing More
One of the clearest real-world examples of the 80/20 rule is Amazon.
In its early days, Amazon sold everything. But growth didn’t come from trying to push everything equally. It came from recognising patterns.
A small percentage of products generated most of the revenue.
A small percentage of customers drove most of the purchases.
A small percentage of partners created most of the value.
So they stopped treating everything the same.
They:
Prioritised their best-performing products Invested heavily in their most loyal customers Streamlined partnerships to focus on what actually moved the needle Directed marketing spend only where impact was highest
The result?
Well… who’s Amazon again? 😉
The Lesson Most People Miss
Amazon didn’t grow by working harder.
They grew by working smarter — and more ruthlessly.
They didn’t ask:
“How do we do more?”
They asked:
“What actually matters?”
And then they reorganised everything around the answer.
What This Means for the Rest of Us
You don’t need to be Amazon to think like Amazon.
You just need to be willing to:
Identify the top 20% of people, actions, or opportunities that drive your results Stop giving equal energy to things that don’t earn it Invest more deeply where there’s already traction
That might mean:
Spending more time with your highest-impact relationships Revisiting opportunities you’ve already started instead of chasing new ones Doubling down on what’s proven instead of experimenting endlessly Being more protective of your time and attention
Focus isn’t about doing less.
It’s about doing less of what doesn’t matter.
Unmuted: By Heidi Weir 
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