PARETO PRINCIPLE

According to Bunkley (2008), Joseph M. Juran “created the Pareto principle, also
known as the 80-20 rule, which states that 80 percent of consequences stem from 20
percent of causes. Today managers use the Pareto principle, named for an Italian
economist, to help them separate what Mr. Juran called the “vital few” resources from
the ‘useful many.’”
It can be explained here that Pareto Principle, which is also known as 80/20 Rule,
states that 80% of output come from 20% of the input. This principle was named after
an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, whom, in 1896, demonstrated that about 80% of
the land in Italy was owned by only 20% of the population. He noted that 80% of
Italy’s land was owned by 20% of the people. Since then, he saw this 80/20 ratio
everywhere, in business, agriculture, sports, health issues, and even education.

[ CITATION Ric98 \l 1033 ] states that If we want to improve society, the best place to
start is by applying the 80/20 Principle to education. There are three key elements to
this:
1. identifying the vital few levers that lead to exceptional results
2. decentralization; and
3. competition

The 80/20 Principle supplies the hypothesis that there are a few really important
reasons that explain superior educational performance, and that a few approaches or
methods will prove to have exceptional results.

The point about the 80/20 Principle is this: do what works best especially in those
parts of life that are themselves supremely important. There will always be a minority
of methods, a minority of practitioners, a minority of reasons and approaches that
produce overwhelmingly superior results. Identify these. Then multiply them.
Automatically, performance will not just be improved; it will be multiplied.
Haberlin (2018) states that while planning a day in teaching, the first step would be to
list everything that needs to be done in the course of the school day. For instance:
 Write learning objectives on the white board
  Set up science materials for a lesson
 Make copies of a math assessment
 Facilitate a parent/teacher conference after school
 Participate in a grade-level team planning meeting
 Hand out field trip permission forms
 Examine reading assessment results/determine areas of focus
 Teach math, ELA, science, social studies classes
Pareto Principle helps to identify the tasks that will have the biggest impact on student
learning, on helping you reach your goals. What has to be done has to be separate
from what is truly valuable and impactful.

Janoska (2018) states that when designing adult learning programs, keep in mind 3
main Pareto rules:
1. Find the most important 20% of the content and focus on teaching it; the other
80% is fluff no matter what the Subject Matter Experts say.
2. From this content, ensure that only 20% is theoretical knowledge, and 80% is
applied, job-based knowledge. Don’t do this, and you will have a bunch of
bored adults retaining even less than what the forgetting curve allows them to.
3. Design as close as possible to 80% asynchronous and 20% synchronous
learning.

[ CITATION Jam17 \l 1033 ] states that 0% of what a student does results in 80% of
their learning. 20% of what a teacher does results in 80% of their student impact. 20%
of what a school does results in 80% of their community impact. 
Try to identify deep work tasks by using Eisenhower’s important/urgent matrix. This
matrix is based on a quote from his Address at the Second Assembly of the World
Council of Churches.“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important.
The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”
  
Eisenhower's Urgent/Important matrix
To identify deep tasks, follow the steps:
1. Put this matrix on a white board any order according to preferences 
2. Identify all the tasks or actions and write each one on their own sticky note.
3. Stick each note into one of the four quadrants. The task needs to be important
and help to achieve goal/s and align with mission statement.
4. Take any task that is in the not urgent, not important quadrant and eliminate
them.
5. The tasks that are not urgent but important quadrant need to be scheduled
Block out the time and do not let anything take this time. These are the tasks
that most likely align with mission statement. They are also most likely to be
the 20% tasks that have the greatest impact on effectiveness.
6. The final 2 quadrants need to be considered thoughtfully and compiled into a
weighted to do list. The important and urgent tasks on top and the urgent not
important tasks at the bottom. Consider these urgent and not important tasks
and only include the ones that actually help you in your mission statement.

Michelle (2021) states that The 80/20 rule in language learning means that most of the
success is the result of only about 20% of the effort made. For instance, quite a few
language learners make the following mistake: they try to learn as much as possible,
expand their vocabulary as wide as possible before they start speaking their target
language. But only a small percentage of the vocabulary of a language (around 2,000
– 3,000 of the most frequently used words) cover about 80% of all conversations and
texts. So instead of teaching students every word in the dictionary, teachers should
focus on the words that are most used in daily conversations. Even a couple of
hundred of ‘the right’ most common words is enough to start practicing speaking
skills in basic conversation and to read simple texts. Teachers should also:

 Pay close attention to the context, including the whole sentence or text as well
as such non-verbal things as the surrounding situation or the speaker’s
gestures.
 Aim for general understanding first. After all, it is not quite about the
individual words. It is more important for learners to understand the message,
the main idea, than each individual word.
 Work around the words learners don’t understand. There may come a time,
even at higher language levels, when learners don’t know or don’t remember a
word – teachers should use other words to explain the idea.
 Simplify things. Teachers should not worry about learners speaking ‘too
simple’ or ‘making mistakes’. First of all, it is impossible to learn to speak
correctly and beautifully without making some mistakes and using some
simple sentences first. Secondly, most people learners talk to, be it native
speakers or other learners, will likely be very accepting – or won’t even
notice. 
Pareto Principle 80-20 rule can be found almost everywhere today. For example:
1. Projects
2. Work Management
3. Technology
4. Management
5. Sales and Marketing
6. Wealth Management
7. Education
Projects
1. 80% of value is achieved with the first 20% of effort
Project teams commonly report that a task is almost completed after a short
time. A long time may pass after that before they report any further progress.
2. 80% of project politics come from 20% of your stakeholders
Political struggles often originate with a few of your stakeholders.

Management

1. 80% of work is completed by 20% of your team

The observation that there is often a wide performance gap between your top
performers and the rest of your team.

Technology

1. 80% of software problems are caused by 20% of bugs

The observation that most problems are caused by a handful of serious bugs.
2. 80% of customers only use 20% of software features
Most users don't use power features. In many cases, they find power features
to be annoying (e.g. complex interfaces).

Sales and Marketing

1. 80% of sales come from 20% of your clients

Many businesses are dependent on their largest accounts.
2. 80% of sales come from 20% of your products
Product diversification may have limited impact on your business.

3. 80% of sales come from 20% of your salespeople

Killer salespeople aren't easy to find.
4. 80% of your complaints come from 20% of your customers
This is a commonly cited customer service rule of thumb.

Wealth Management
 1. 80% of wealth is owned by 20% of people
Pareto's 1906 observation that 80% of Italy's wealth (land) was controlled by
20% of people has held up extremely well. Today, 20% of the world's
population controls 82.7% of wealth.

Study

1. 80% of our test results come from 20% of what we study

2. 80% of what we learned come from 20% of our study effort
How to apply 80/20 rule in Education

What does it have to do with language learning? The Pareto Principle can be observed
– and used for higher efficiency – in this sphere as well! In fact, this is how I teach
languages in my Intrepid Languages courses – using my own 80/20 method.

The 80/20 rule in language learning means that most of your success is the result of
only about 20% of the effort you make. It also means that only about 20% of the
things you learn contributes to most (around 80%) of your improvement. 

For instance, quite a few language learners make the following mistake: they try to
learn as much as possible, expand their vocabulary as wide as possible before they
start speaking their target language. Don’t get me wrong: it is good to have a large
vocabulary and it is important to never stop learning. However, you should never wait
until you ‘learn everything’ before you start speaking. 

The fact is, only a small percentage of the vocabulary of a language (around 2,000 –
3,000 of the most frequently used words) cover about 80% of all conversations and
texts – this includes anything from chatting with friends and reading comic books to
lectures and academic articles. 

It might seem like 2,000 words is a large number, however, considering that there can
be hundreds of thousands of words in a language (for instance, Spanish has around
150,000 words), it is not that much, and is, in fact, quite manageable. 

Generally speaking, you can use the 80/20 rule to learn languages by concentrating on
the most common words. But that’s not all you can do.

. Focus on the most frequent words and phrases

As you’ve just learned, a relatively small number of the most common words can get
you quite far in practicing and using your target language – this is the 80/20 rule in
language learning. 

Of course, the most frequent words will differ from language to language, but there
are a few key categories you can single out. Using French as an example, here are a
few key areas you should focus on:

 Pronouns: je (I), toi, vous (you), il (he, it), elle (she)

 Basic verbs: être (to be), avoir (to have), apprendre (to learn), vivre (to live),
vouloir (to want), partir (to go), venir (to come)
 Basic grammar: the word order, verb conjugations, use of articles
 Time indicators: maintenant (now), aujourd’hui (today), demain (tomorrow),
hier (yesterday), plus tard (later)
  Basic nouns 

You can often find lists of the most common words in your target language online or
in language apps. For instance, you can seek out the most common Russian words
for travel and by working with a teacher, you can also ask them to help you
concentrate on the most essential words for your target language.

Even a couple of hundred of ‘the right’ most common words is enough to start
practicing your speaking skills in basic conversation and to read simple texts. 

Don’t worry about advanced words and impressing people with your vocabulary.
Don’t be afraid of sounding ‘simple’ or ‘primitive’ – people you talk to will use most
of the same words, and simple phrases can be meaningful and effective, too. 

You can – and should – expand your vocabulary as you learn, and advanced words
will enter your vocabulary in the future. However, don’t chase them at the beginning
of your learning process – learn the most common simple words and make the most of
them.

2. Start using your target language right now

Just memorizing the most common words and learning basic grammar is, of course,
not enough for learning a language properly: after all, what’s the use of knowing
2,000 words if you can’t, well, use them? 

Too many learners make the mistake of waiting until they reach a certain level to start
speaking – don’t be one of them. To make the Pareto Principle in language learning
work for you, you need to start using the things you learn as soon as possible in
conversation. 

The earlier you start speaking the language the easier it gets and the faster you learn,
so don’t waste time waiting. Waiting until you learn X words or reach level X is a
waste of time. 

In the beginning, you’ll be able to say just a few sentences, but the important thing is
that you do say them frequently: wish someone a good morning, chat about the
weather, ask what time it is… You may hear some new words in reply, but you’ll
often understand them from context or at least get the general idea of what the person
is saying – which is totally fine at the initial stages of learning. 

You’ll be able to say and understand more in the future, but to get there you need to
start speaking right now.

3. Make the most of what you know

The thing about the most common words in a language is that they are not only
common – they are also quite versatile. There are many polysemantic words with
several meanings among them, as well as words that can simply come in handy in
many situations. You can learn to make the most of the vocabulary you know to be
able to speak in a large variety of situations.

Here are a few strategies you can use to do that: 

 Pay close attention to the context, including the whole sentence or text as
well as such non-verbal things as the surrounding situation or the speaker’s
gestures. This way you can often easily understand the meaning of a new or
polysemantic word.
 Aim for general understanding first. After all, it is not quite about the
individual words. When someone is telling you something, it is more
important to understand the message, the main idea, than each individual
word.
 Work around the words you don’t know. There is a board game called
Taboo where you need to explain words to other players without using the
words themselves: for instance, explain what a cat or a chair is without saying
‘cat’ or ‘chair’. The game can be quite fun – and it is also a good language
learning strategy. There may come a time, even at higher language levels,
when you don’t know or don’t remember a word – don’t worry too much, just
use other words you know to explain the idea. With some words it is quite
easy: if you forget the Italian word ‘piccolo’ (small), you can just say ‘non
grande’ (not big) to convey a similar message. With other words, you’ll need
to be more creative, but it is part of the fun of using the 80/20 rule to learn
languages.
 Simplify things. For instance, if you haven’t learned past tenses, use present
tenses with past time markers – ‘mangio ieri’ (literally: I eat yesterday) – and
your message will come across. Don’t worry about speaking ‘too simple’ or
‘making mistakes’. First of all, it is impossible to learn to speak correctly and
beautifully without making some mistakes and using some simple sentences
first. Secondly, most people you talk to, be it native speakers or other learners,
will likely be very accepting – or won’t even notice. 

4. Don’t try to learn EVERYTHING

First of all, it is simply impossible. There are too many words and phrases in any
language and too many possible usages. Moreover, words become obsolete and new
words get coined all the time. Also, your target language most likely has a few
dialects with their own unique words, pronunciation rules, and even different
grammar. One simply can’t learn ALL of a language. 

Secondly, as discussed above, even if you manage to learn nearly all the words of
your target language, you won’t ever use most of them. Take, for instance, archaic
words that were used a few centuries ago or the slang of teens playing a particular
computer game – if you are not one of these teens or a student of history or ancient
literature, both of these vocabulary categories are useless to you. 
If you try to learn everything, at best you will end up knowing a bunch of random
words and phrases that you won’t even be able to use. And, as we all know, in
language learning, what doesn’t get used gets forgotten quickly, which will
completely negate the effort you made. 

Don’t chase the achievement of ‘knowing all the words’ – it sounds cool only on the
surface. Our time and effort are limited – better make use of the Pareto Principle and
invest it into what’s really effective. 

5. Learn about language learning itself

The Pareto Principle in language learning is not only about high-frequency words, it is
about effort as well: most likely, only 20% of your effort brings you 80% of your
progress in your target language. Some people’s learning is even less effective, and
they keep on learning a foreign language for ages without practically any results.
Don’t worry, though. There are a few things you can do to make your learning more
efficient. 

One of the things you can do to achieve that is to educate yourself about language
learning. In the fast-developing world of today, language learning doesn’t stand still
either. Whole new approaches to language learning appear, new techniques and
strategies, new types of exercises, new websites and apps. 

A textbook written 50 years ago could have been good for its time. But today, at least
part of the material in it will be obsolete. Moreover, nowadays, working with a
textbook is just one of the hundreds of options you have in language learning. 

By learning what different options are out there, you can find the ones that fit you the
most, make your language learning more efficient, but also more varied and fun. 

6. Pay attention to your experiences and results

We are all different people with individual habits and tastes – and we all learn
differently, too. There are visual and auditory learners, people who need more
preparation and those who are more spontaneous, social and solitary learners, etc. 

Whether you know for sure what your learner type is or not, it is important to pay
attention to your learning experiences. Over time, you will see what works for you
and what doesn’t, and which techniques and exercises bring the most results.

This doesn’t mean that you have to eliminate everything that doesn’t work quite so
well. For instance, even if you are a visual learner, you will still need listening
practice – otherwise, your listening skills will suffer. 

However, by noticing what type of learning is more effective for you, you’ll be able
to concentrate on it and make faster progress as a result.
7. Optimize your learning habits 

This tip is similar to the previous one but it has less to do with the language itself and
language learning techniques, and more to do with the day-to-day details of your
learning: when you do it and how, what learning tools you use, what distractions
there are, and so on. 

Optimizing learning habits will look different for different learners, but here are a few
things you might consider:

 When do you learn best during the day? If your learning is most effective in
the morning but you only have free time in the evening – take a look at your
schedule and see if you can free up a little time for learning in the morning at
least a couple of days a week. It can be hard to do with a busy schedule, but
give it a try – if you are a ‘morning learner’, 10 minutes of learning in the
morning may actually be more effective than half an hour of learning in the
evening. 
 Are there many distractions when you learn? Work emails, social media
notifications, kids or pets that want attention… On the one hand, we do need
to pay attention to our work, families, and friends. On the other hand, if you
try to do it and learn a language at the same time, neither will be successful –
multitasking doesn’t really work. While not all distractions can be eliminated
every time you sit down for a learning session, do your best to lower their
number. Find a quiet room, turn off smartphone notifications, ask your family
to give you some alone time. And again, 10 minutes of uninterrupted
concentration will be more effective than half an hour or more of juggling
multiple tasks.
 Are you using modern technology? Faster Internet allows you easier access
to language learning resources. Good headphones will make listening practice
more effective and more enjoyable. A smartphone with a handful of language
learning apps will allow you to learn and practice on the go wherever you are.
Of course, you don’t need the latest most expensive tech to learn a language.
However, if your tech is obsolete or broken, it may actually slow down your
learning – consider replacing it. 

These are just a few general examples. Your personal habits and the possible ways of
optimizing them may be different. But, as with the previous tip, it is important to pay
attention to what works and what doesn’t. Find the 20% that brings you all the results
and make the most of it!. 

8. Set measurable short-term goals 

Imagine you have to travel somewhere – but you don’t know the destination. There is
a chance you will get there somehow by roaming around, but it will take you a huge
amount of time and effort. 
Traveling somewhere without knowing the destination may sound weird. Learning a
language without setting goals is exactly the same. Without clear goals, you ‘roam
around’, learn a bit here and a bit there, maybe even make some progress. But truly
mastering your target language is impossible without clear goals. 

‘I want to learn X language’ is not a good goal – there is no clear understanding of

what you need to do, there is no timeline. Goals that will help you maintain
motivation and learn efficiently should be:

 Short-term. Set a goal for each month or even each week. Such goals will act
as milestones, and moving from one to the other will get easier. You can have
long-term goals as well, but without the short-term ones, they begin to seem
distant and the temptation to put things off (‘that’s okay, I still have the whole
year to do it!’) is very strong.
 Realistic. Moving up a language level in a couple of months may be possible
– if you spend several hours a day learning and practicing a lot. For most
people with jobs and families, this is impossible. By setting a goal along the
lines of ‘move from A2 to B1 in a month’ you will most likely set yourself up
for failure. There may be some amazing stories of fast learners out there, but it
is essential that you take into account your capabilities and other
responsibilities you have in life. 
 Measurable. One of the reasons ‘learn X language’ is not a good goal is
because it is too vague: What level do you want to achieve? What do you
want/need to be able to do in the language? What topics do you want to
master? ‘Achieve B1 level’ or ‘complete the X course’ is a better example
because you can actually see clearly if you have achieved the goal or not, and
how well you managed to do it. Such goals will help you track your progress
and move forward more efficiently. 

9. Confront your fears 

There may be some things about your target language that are quite hard, and many
learners are afraid of even approaching them: Russian verb conjugation, French
pronunciation, Chinese characters… Such things are also usually essential for
mastering the language. 

Is there something about your target language you are ‘afraid’ of or find extremely
difficult? Don’t run away from it. Chances are, it is among the 20% of the language
material that is needed for 80% of all communication. 

For instance, many learners fear speaking, especially outside of the classroom
environment. However, speaking is an essential skill, most of us are learning a
language to be able to speak to people – and you’ll never improve your speaking by
being afraid to do it.

It may be easier said than done, but facing your fears in language learning is a must.
Otherwise, you will never truly reach fluency. 
10. Be honest with yourself 

Don’t deceive yourself into thinking you are doing enough when you aren’t. Don’t try
to convince yourself your learning is effective when it isn’t. 

Abandoning old habits and trying out new ways of learning your target language may
be challenging. But it is a good challenge that will shake you up a bit, help you stay
motivated and make your learning more effective and more fun. 

On the contrary, sticking to your old learning routines will only get you so far – or
hardly anywhere. After all, ‘if you always do what you have always done, you’ll
always get what you’ve always got’. Why waste time and effort on the things that
don’t bring results? 

11. Practice – and have fun! 

Practice is the most effective way of improving your language level. To make the
80/20 rule in language learning work, find different ways to practice the key language
skills – reading, writing, listening, and speaking – every day. 

But don’t forget to enjoy yourself as well! Some of the things you enjoy doing in your
target language may not be among the most effective 20%. However, language
learning is not as cut-and-dry. 

Our emotions play a great role in learning, and when we enjoy the process we usually
learn much better. Thus, learn the high-frequency words and phrases, but don’t forget
to find fun ways to practice them: watch movies, read books, attend language clubs,
chat to people, browse the web… Bring some enjoyment into your language learning
to help the Pareto Principle work its magic. 

Final Thoughts 

The Pareto Principle can be applied to language learning just like many other areas of
your life. We can see proof of this when we use a relatively small number of high-
frequency words in order to under the majority of texts and communicate in various
situations. From this, we can see that only 20% of the effort you make is responsible
for most of your progress. 

And one of the greatest things about the Pareto Principle in language learning is that if
you are aware of it, you can concentrate on the things that are the most effective and
actually shift this percentage, making the most of the things that work and discarding
the ones that don’t – and the tips above should help you do just that. 
Learning a language, at times, will be inefficient. Learning anything involves its ups
and downs, some things we try and learn simply do not go in! We can’t learn
everything perfectly after all! We’ll often encounter the kinds of learning that just
frustrate us, whether it’s going through grammar tables, memorisation techniques or
reading comprehension. Often, we realise that our input doesn’t equal our output –
that we aren’t getting a fair return on our efforts. On the flip side to all of this,
sometimes we really hit upon a technique or style of learning that drives us forward in
leaps and bounds. This can be one of the most satisfying things about learning a
language, as you’ll really feel your improvement accelerate. The imbalance in your
input into learning and the output is called The Pareto Principle. Here is how you can
apply the Pareto Principle in Language Learning.

What is the Pareto Principle?

The Pareto Principle helps illustrate that the majority of results come from the
minority of input. These are some examples:

20% of workers form 80% of results: Reward these employees for greater
productivity.

20% of Mosquitos contribute 80% of Malaria: Exterminate these first.

20% of customers contribute 80% of profit: Focus on satisfying these customers.

The Pareto Principle in language learning means that 20% of the things you learn
contribute 80% of your total improvement. In other words, much of the things you
learn aren’t nearly as relevant as a select few, which are the things that really drive
your learning. Like in these examples, if you focus on these, your overall output will
increase.

The mostly irrelevant 80%

Ultimately, it depends entirely on you and your learning style. If you took the
opposite stance to the Pareto principle then you’d want to learn everything before you
begin to speak and use a language. Meticulously learning vocab will go to waste if
you’re not writing and speaking it, and grammar won’t be remembered if you aren’t
frequently employing it. By learning too much before you begin to use the
information, you’re often wasting time. If you learnt 100% of the dictionary, the
amount you’d retain would be miniscule! It’d be tremendously inefficient.
Apply the Pareto Principle in language learning from day 1

A big reason as to why we like to learn as much as possible before using a language
practically is nervousness. We’d prefer to get really good at something before
externalising it and using it in the real world. Overall, though, this approach will slow
down your learning. It’s better to quickly establish that certain ways you learn have a
greater effect on your learning than others and apply this from day 1. A great way to
do this is to just start speaking a language you’re learning almost immediately if you
can. Even if your grasp on its vocab is poor, you can deduce ways of talking to others
on the go. Don’t worry about your limitations.

You’re as ready now as you’ll ever be, you can’t just keep learning and learning in
your own time without trying to use the things you’re learning in a real world
situation. Stop telling yourself you’ll be ready after you learn this, or learn that, and
instead, just start speaking with what you have.

Increase efficiency, learn better

The Pareto Principle in language learning revolves around finding your efficient
groove. You want to strike a balance between learning and using a language. If you
can concentrate on the things that really help you learn and cut the stuff which doesn’t
help you at all then you’re sure to see big improvements. The more efficient you
learn, the more satisfying it’ll be.

Find your 20%

Create a list of most frequent words

You need to lay down some groundwork so find some frequently used vocab and
learn them to the best of your ability to begin with. Worrying about advanced words
or too many words isn’t important when you begin to learn a language.

Make your goals short term

Don’t set goals that’ll take ages and ages to complete. If you set shorter term goals
then you’re more likely to realise which ones take longer to complete. See if the info
you’re missing out on is pivotal to your learning and if it isn’t, stop and dedicate that
time to types of learning you excel at.

Educate yourself

Get involved with the vast amount of information available on language learning. The
more you’re familiar with, the wider your knowledge of the whole topic will get,
increasing your overall general comprehension.

Look at past experiences

Think back to things you’ve been good at in the past and how you learnt them. Was
there anything about your favourite subject and the teacher that taught it which you
can replicate?

Optimise your study habits

Have a look at the main 3 areas of reading, writing and speaking. Is there one which
you find tricky and do you spend more time on it than on others? That seems like the
right thing to do but in reality, spending more time on something that yields less
results can be inefficient. Concentrate on things you find easier and eventually, the
harder things will come more naturally too.
Face your fears

No pain, no gain! Face the things you’re most nervous about. In the vast majority of
cases, this is speaking. Speak and don’t be afraid to speak up! There’s nothing really
to lose! Most native speakers appreciate any efforts of others speaking their language.

Be honest with yourself

Don’t kid yourself down the wrong route of learning. Convincing yourself you do
enough, or too little, is damaging. Keep a realistic perspective of how much work you
do, so you can sense how the output coincides with your inputs.

Think practically

Think about the things you want to be able to do, the actions that you want to feel
confident about in the language you want to learn. Instead of thinking about theory
too often, concentrate on the real-life impact of your learning.
Input vs Output

You work hard.

Question: does each individual hour you put in result in equal output in your work?

You study hard.

Question: do you feel that every hour of study improves your language ability by a
proportional amount?

You know a lot of people.

Question: does each relationship enrich your life as much as every other?

There's a strong chance that you answered No to the above questions. In looking for
why that might be the case, the Pareto Principle offers an explanation. Otherwise
known as the 80/20 Rule, it states that input and output is rarely balanced. 80% of
your results are produced by only 20% of your efforts.

In fact, the 80/20 relationship is far more pervasive than just this. When you start
looking, it manifests itself throughout life. 80% of the world's wealth, for example, is
thought to be controlled by 20% of the people. It's often the case that in the world of
sales, 80% of revenue is generated by a dynamic 20% of salespeople.

The lesson?

While this is all very interesting, there is a serious point. Namely, if you know that
80% of what you do will have little impact on your results, then it makes sense to
identify the other 20% that really matters, and then focus all your energy on that.

The 80/20 rule applied to language learning

My video on the same topic:

Armed with this insight, we then have to examine the way we learn languages and ask
ourselves: what is that 20% for me? Identifying that 20% can be tricky. More on that
later. First, some examples.

Case 1

Think of the last language course you took (self-study or face-to-face). Think of how
it contributed to your language level. Now, what proportion of that course was truly
valuable to you, or made a big impact on your level? Chances are you ploughed
through a lot of stuff and only remembered those things which you found really
useful. While it's true that all the other stuff might have had some long-term benefits,
in reality, as with any long-term project, you need more tangible short-term aims in
order to maintain momentum and stay motivated.

Case 2

When I was in Japan, I spent a long time studying and learning but didn't seem to
make progress in speaking. I determined that it was because I hadn't been putting my
language into practice and as a result nothing became automated. My 80/20 in that
situation was clear: any real improvement was going to come from practising
speaking with native speakers – putting into practice everything I'd been learning at
home. I focused all my efforts on setting up speaking opportunities with teachers and
language partners. I also came up with some brutal exercises and a regular language-
learning routine to put my speaking through its paces in everyday situations. My level
went through the roof over the next few months.

Case 3

Have a look at what I wrote about in this post, describing my early stages in learning
Cantonese:

To get really good at a language you need to read and listen a lot to authentic
language. But you can't do that before you know enough words to understand it all.
Therefore, as a beginner, an 80/20 analysis tells you that you need to prioritise one
thing: vocabulary.

How to find your 20%

It's all very well for me to say “identify those 20% of things that will make 80% of the
difference”, but you'd be justified in throwing it back at me: “Fine!” you say, “but
how do I identify that 20%?”

Eight ways to do your 80/20 analysis

1. Word frequency list. If you're a beginner, you could start with a word
frequency list in the language you're learning. The 100/200 most common
words in the language would be a great place to start. Having said that, you
could argue that you'd learn those words pretty quickly however you went
about studying, so take it or leave it! However, it is the obvious point to make
in relation to an 80/20 strategy.
2. Set short-term goals. Most of the sales department's revenue was generated
by 20% of the salesmen. How is that measured? By income. Would they have
an income target for the month? You bet. What's your language learning target
for the next month? Don't have one? Big problem. You can't measure what
will bring you results if you don't have clearly defined goals. Get your
short-term goals down on paper, and only then you can determine what steps
will bring you 80% closer to reaching those goals. See this post if you need
help with this.
 3. Educate yourself. In order to make smart, strategic decisions you need to
know what you're talking about. So read up on language learning. Blogs such
as this one, this one and this one are a great place to start as passionate
language learners talk about their experiences.
4. Past experience. Think back to previous language-related experiences,
whether in another country or at school. Can you put your finger on anything
in particular that really helped you? Can you replicate that now?
5. Study habits. Look at your study habits. What balance of time do you spend
on speaking, writing, reading and listening? If you're really down on one skill,
it may be that focusing on that skill for a while really gives you a kick where
you need it.
6. Feared things. Is there something that really puts you off, or that you're afraid
of? (e.g. learning Chinese characters, reading your grammar book.) It's often
the case in life that tackling your feared things bring your the greatest results.
7. Be honest with yourself. I've caught myself, at times, telling people that I
study everyday, but then realising it's been a few days since I hit the books. Be
honest with yourself – if you're not attending to the basics (like doing some
study everyday) then that's exactly what will bring you your 80%.
8. Common sense. Not a popular one, but it's sometimes what we need. Be
practical – examine the obvious. What's frustrating you right now? What
would you really like to be able to do? Now, drill down and do some
straightforward thinking about what you could do that would help you get
there. Often the answer is staring you in the face. See Case 2 above, for
example. Don't over-complicate things. Think along the lines of the following:

A. “I can't speak!”

B. “Why not?”

A. “I don't know enough words.”

A. “Then learn more words!”

The 80-20 rule states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Sleep, eat, school, homework, volunteer; rinse and repeat. In my early years at
university, I was under the impression that any time not spent on work was me being
lazy and not trying hard enough. In reality, this was counter-productive and a terrible
mindset: studying too much made me hate school for everything I had to give up to be
good at it. Doing something that you hate for extended periods of time tends to result
in you hating it even more. For me, that made my studying even less productive
which forced me to spend more time doing it. As soon as I realized that I was
spinning my wheels in this vicious cycle, I knew I had to change the way I was
approaching things.

In this post, I’m going to be discussing one of the time management tactics I
implemented this past year that helped me cut down my studying time to less than 1/2
of what it used to be while improving my grades at the same time. The one rule that I
implemented that has had the biggest impact on my study habits is Pareto’s Principle,
also known as the 80-20 rule. Put simply, the 80-20 rule states that 80% of the effects
come from 20% of the causes. Sometimes this is even more extreme – sometimes
close to 99% of the effects come from less than 5% of the results. This is true in both
social and scientific contexts. Some cool examples:

 ~20% of seeds planted result in 80% of the flowers

 ~20% of the world has ~80% of the wealth
 ~20% of occupational safety hazards lead to ~80% of the injuries
 You wear ~20% of your clothes ~80% of the time

***These numbers do not need to add to 100. This rule is to show you the skewedness
of cause and effect.

So, how does this apply to academics? Simply put, 20% or less of the studying you
are doing is leading to the majority of your results. Furthermore, 20% or less of your
course content comprises the majority of the content on your exams. Remember,
professors (whether they know it or not) are applying the 80-20 rule to their exams.
Due to time constraints, they need to test your knowledge on their course on only a
few pieces of paper. Without a doubt, they are going to do their best by testing the
most important ideas of the course which tends to be about 20% of the material they
teach.

The key here is to be using the tactics that are leading to the majority of your results
all while studying the core content that is going to be on the exam. While this sounds
amazing in theory, how do you actually apply it? How can you learn to recognize
which study tactics are working for you and which parts of your courses are the most
important? With regards to understanding which study tactics are working for, you are
going to have to do a little bit of self-experimentation.
Try out a couple different methods and then evaluate how helpful you found each one.
You may find that for each course you are using different strategies – this is
completely normal as the nature of learning something like math is very different than
that of learning biology. Going into depth about different study tactics is outside the
scope of this blog post, but by strategies I am referring to things such as how much
pre-reading you’re doing, how many practise questions you’re attempting, where you
study, if you study in groups versus being alone, etc. Onto the second matter – how do
you figure out what 20% of the course content is the most important?

Here are a couple tips that I use:

 In almost all my classes, only content discussed in class is on the exam. If it is

not talked about in class, you probably do not need to spend copious amounts
of time studying it.
 Note down how long a professor spends talking about a topic – if they talk
about it in-depth and for a fair amount of time in class, it is probably
something you are going to want to remember for the exam.
 When a professor says this is the type of question you’ll see on the exam, take
note of it! They often aren’t kidding. In a class with hundreds of diagrams in
it, I was able to ascertain exactly which three were going to be tested on the
final simply by looking at my notes and seeing when my professor said
"possible test question."
 Do not memorize, UNDERSTAND! The only way this rule is going to work is
if you seek to understand the material rather than simply memorize it. If you
can understand the core idea of the material, you can often-times derive the
rest of it with the little bit that you do know. This applies not only in math but
in biology. For example, the amount of material in BIOL 112 may seem
daunting but if you seek to understand the logic behind many of the
mechanisms that work, deriving a procedure from just knowing what happens
at the beginning of the process becomes a lot easier.

Please note that I am not asking you to simply ignore 80% of your course content –
that would be silly. Do still read the material, but make sure you are spending the
majority of your time on the key ideas that matter! Learning how to think things
through is a much better use of your time than memorizing everything. I cannot stress
this enough: memorizing everything takes a lot of time whereas understanding
everything will allow you to apply your knowledge to questions displaying things you
may have never seen before.

Before I end this blog post, I have to mention one more thing. The hardest thing to do
that I listed here is eliminating things. It seems inconceivable that by doing less you
can learn more, like one of those ridiculous promises on infomercials. Most people I
tell this to are fascinated by what I’m saying, but refuse to apply it as they are afraid
of what might happen if they eliminate some of the incorrect things. While I certainly
messed up a few times at first when trying to apply the 80-20 rule, I can definitely say
that the long-term benefits of learning how to apply it properly in my life FAR
outweigh the short-term struggles. I now have the time to do the things I enjoy and
my grades have improved; not learning the rule would have cost me that.

Need help with some of the things I mentioned in this post? Want to learn some new
study tactics? Need some help in figuring out what’s working for you and what isn’t?
Perhaps you would like some assistance in figuring out what parts of your courses are
more important than others? Meet with a Science Peer Academic Coach at the
Tutoring and Coaching Pavilion on weekdays.

Jason Dhami, the author of this blog post, was an UBC undergraduate student
integrating Parthenogenesis and Host Anatomy, as well as a SPAC coach. During his
time working as a Systems Analyst at McDonald Realty and as the Program Manager
of the Learning Buddies Network, he became interested in increasing his productivity
at work. In this quest for knowledge on this topic, he learned about many of the
principles presented in this article and adapted them to academics to free up his time
to do the non-academic things he loves.

The 80/20 rule for teaching

The 80/20 rule is a well known principle in business also known as the Pareto
principle. This principle states that roughly 80% of consequences are caused by
roughly 20% of the actions. Applied to business this means that 20% of what a
company does generates 80% of their profits. It means 20% of their customers
provide 80% of the profits. But it also means 20% of the customers cause 80% of the
work and 80% of the complaints. There are even those in business who take this
principle one step further, applying it to itself creating the 64/4 principle. That is, 4%
of actions cause 64% of the resulting consequences. This literally means a business
owner can do 4% of what he or she normally does to run the business and still
generate 64% of the profits.

Consider this for a moment as applied to education, learning and teaching. 20% of
what a student does results in 80% of their learning. 20% of what a teacher does
results in 80% of their student impact. 20% of what a school does results in 80% of
their community impact. 

The hard bit is identifying which 20% of our actions is having this impact. This is
where tools such as Eisenhower’s matrix are helpful.

Eisenhower’s Matrix

The 20% of actions are frequently referred to as your high impact activities. Those
activities you do or that your student does, that generate 80% of the results. So what
are your 20% of actions generating 80% of your results? I’m going to argue that these
are your deep work tasks. We can begin to identify deep work tasks by using
Eisenhower’s important/urgent matrix This matrix is based on a quote from his
Address at the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches.
“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not
important, and the important are never urgent.”

Eisenhower's Urgent/Important matrix

To help you identify your deep tasks I encourage you to follow these steps:

1. Put this matrix on a white board (don’t worry about the order, you really just
need the 4 boxes labelled). 
2. Identify all the tasks or actions you take as a teacher and write each one on
their own sticky note.
3. Take your time and stick each note into one of the four quadrants. The task
needs to be important to you and help you achieve your goal/s and align with
your mission statement.
4. Take any task that is in the not urgent, not important quadrant and chuck them
in the bin. Unless it is going to get you fired or you legally have to never do
these tasks again!
5. The tasks that are in your not urgent but important quadrant need to be
scheduled into your calendar. Block out the time and do not let anything take
this time. These are the tasks that most likely align with your mission
statement. They are also most likely to be your 20% tasks that have the
greatest impact on your effectiveness. It will often include, doing exercise,
reading a book, conducting research for a unit of work you are creating, or
applying what you learnt from a professional learning experience.
6. The final 2 quadrants need to be considered thoughtfully and compiled into a
weighted to do list. You want the important and urgent tasks on top and the
urgent not important tasks at the bottom. As you do this, consider these urgent
and not important tasks and only include the ones that actually help you in
your mission statement. You want to keep those that help you achieve your
goals or that you legally must do as a teacher. You may also want to see if it is
possible for you to delegate these tasks to someone else.
Most of us are unaware of the universal rule that works silently behind our lives and
governs it. Anyone who understands its wonders lives a happier life, accomplishing
more in lesser time. It is seen at work in our daily lives, and known by various names;
the 80/20 rule, the Pareto Principle, and the Pareto’s Law. The principle is simple,
stating that hardly 20 percent of the action is responsible for 80 percent of its
outcome. In other words, 80 percent of the impact comes from 20 percent of the
cause[1]. The 80/20 rule is everywhere; especially in education. This article discusses
the same; the application of 80/20 rule in education and the top 5 ways to take the
maximum advantage out of it.

The 80/20 Rule – In Detail

The Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule has been named after Vilfredo Pareto, an economist
and an inventor of this principle. Centuries ago, he observed that 80 percent of the
wealth in Italy was in the hand of 20 percent of the population, and that 80 percent of
the peas in a garden was grown out of 20 percent of the tea plants. Pareto studied the
land distribution patterns of some other countries also and found similarities. Today,
the 80/20 rule is seen in almost all aspects of life, for instance:

 In the field of languages, the most commonly used 20 percent of the words
make the 80 percent of the word occurrences
 The richest 20 persons in the world hold 80 percent of the world’s wealth
 Microsoft reported in 2002 that 80 percent of the crashes and errors in MS
Office and Windows resulted from 20 percent of the bugs
 Most of the researches show that 20 percent of the customers generate 80
percent of the company’s profit while 20 percent of the complaints received
arose from 80 percent of the customers[2]

The 80/20 Rule in Education – The Ways to Make the Most of 80/20 Classrooms

Way No. 1:  Time & Resources Consumption Pattern

You must know that who 20 percent of the students take up 80 percent of the time and
resources in the classroom. Determine those 20 percent of students whom you invest
most of your time and energy at. Make systems, rules and strategies to streamline the
challenges[3]. The recognition of this pattern eases much frustration when you see the
students who just went through your mind a minute ago. It makes their challenge less
personal as you can view a bigger picture.

For instance, one way to implement is to know how many of the students are
struggling for being organized. It has been seen that a bigger portion of the teacher’s
time is freed up if the learners can handle the work on their own.

Way No. 2: Know the 80 Percent

Instead of more focused on 20 percent, emphasize more on 80 percent to maximize
the impact. Instructors and trainers mostly focus the students they cannot easily reach.
The dwell on times they are unable to complete a lesson due to a change in schedule,
behavior or other interruptions, and then they go back home with a frustration every
single day[4].

Instructors don’t recognize the 80 percent successes they can have in their days. One
of the key reasons that put us in the wrong direction, especially in educational
scenario, is that we tend to value the 100 percent with A+; an ideal score. Majority of
instructors don’t become the instructors contended with 80 percent success rate. It is
imperative to believe that 80 percent can be the best we can do.

Way No. 3: Don’t be Perfect

The 80/20 rule has been everywhere since the universe was formed. As per this rule,
you cannot expect to gain perfection in your profession as an educator. This is the rule
where distinguishing between perfection and excellence is very important. Perfection
implies reaching each and every student. And, it is not possible. That, though, doesn’t
mean that you must not try. Rather, you must strive for the excellence.

Way No. 4: Be Kind to Yourself

It is also very important to give yourself a space and be kind to your soul. Keep in
mind that you are not at all giving up on your students; rather you are just giving
yourself the permission to be satisfied with yourself, even if you are unable to reach
the remaining 20 percent[5]. And most importantly, never forget to give yourself the
credit of your 80 percent achievements.

Way No. 5 Balance Content & Impact as per 80/20 Rule

It simply means 20 percent of the content creates 80 percent of the impact. Determine
the most important and impactful 20 percent of your overall content, using your
passion and creativity. Of course, this takes time. It is a fact that 20 percent of the
content you make students learn accounts for the 80 percent of the effect on the
understanding and grades of the students[6]. Once you find out the 20 percent of the
content delivering 80 percent of the impact, your burden will be radically reduced
while covering the content the entire year.

Completing the high-impact tasks in lesser time and with efficiency also boosts your
energy and confidence. Instead of feeling like you are running on your knees, you will
feel more accomplished and focused. After applying and practicing 80/20 rule, you
get a motivation to go ahead. Start practicing 80/20 rule in everything and you will
soon begin to accomplish twice as much as normal. This is my personal experience!
They use this principle to accomplish more in less time. We can see it at work in
our everyday lives, and it goes by many names: Pareto’s Law, the Pareto Principle,
the 80/20 rule, or the law of vital few and trivial many.

The Pareto Principle states that roughly 20% of actions produce 80% of
results. This also means 80% of effects come from 20% of causes.

Here are some simple 80/20s you might recognize:

 You wear 20% of the clothes in your closet 80% of the time.
 People spend 80% of their time with 20% of their family and friends
 20% of society holds 80% of the wealth.

It’s not always an 80/20 split—sometimes it’s 70/30 or 90/10—but you will rarely
see an even split between cause and effect.

How can you apply the Pareto Principle inside the classroom? 

80/20 for the Classroom #1: 20% of Your Students Will Take Up 80% of Your
Resources and Time

Action Plan: Identify the 20% of your students who take the most of your energy.
Develop strategies, systems, and rules to streamline their challenges.

A small number of students are going to take up a great deal of your time and
energy. I’m sure you’re picturing a certain student right now. 

There’s tremendous value in recognizing this pattern! It will ease a lot of your

frustration when you recognize the student who went through your mind a moment
ago. It makes their challenges seem less personal when you see that bigger picture.

One way I did this was identifying how many of my students were struggling to
stay organized. That’s one of the reasons I began teaching study skills in the first
place! I realized that a big chunk of my time would be freed up if students could
actually handle the work on their own.

Remember to recognize the 20% who need the most from you!

80/20 for the Classroom#2: You Will Not Be Able to Reach 20% of Your Students

Action Plan: Focus on the 80% you can reach and impact!

Teachers are always focusing on the students they can’t reach. They tend to dwell
on the times they can’t finish a lesson plan because of a schedule change, a behavior
issue, or other interruptions, and they go home with a sinking feeling every single
day.
Teachers don’t realize the 80% successes they have in their days! If I had this
awareness as a classroom teacher, it would have completely transformed the way I felt
about my effectiveness! I certainly didn’t have an 80/20 perspective when I was
teaching.

One reason we focus in the wrong direction, especially in education, is that we

value the 100%, the A+, the perfect score. Most of us did not become teachers to be
satisfied with an 80% success rate!

It’s EXTREMELY important that we recognize  that “80%” is usually the best
we can do. 

The 80/20 rule has been in effect since the universe was created. It says we
CANNOT expect perfection in our profession as educators!

This is where the distinction between excellence and perfection is extremely

important. Perfection means reaching every single student. The reality is, you can’t
do that. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Instead, strive for excellence.

It’s also essential to be kind to yourself. Remember, you are not giving up on

students. You are simply giving yourself permission to be content with yourself, even
when you can’t reach that remaining 20%.

Most importantly, give yourself credit for your 80% victories!

80/20 for the Classroom #3: 20% of Content = 80% of Impact!

Action Plan: Identify the most important 20% of your content—then let your
creativity and passion take over. (P.S. This takes time!)

20% of the content you have to teach will account for 80% of the impact on
students’ grades and understanding—that is a fact. You can see it on standardized
tests or even the tests published by your textbook companies.

If you can identify the 20% of the content that will have 80% of the impact, you
can DRAMATICALLY reduce the burden you put on yourself when covering content
throughout the year.

It is  important to recognize that reflecting on the content like this, will… take…
time! So don’t take off tomorrow and expect to be able to identify the most important
20% of your content. Just make a note to pay attention to this and keep track of it over
the course of the next few months.
Putting This Into Practice

First, start to recognize your 80% victories. Then, moving forward, you’ll see these
patterns more in your students and your content. Over time, you’ll be able to identify
the key elements of your curriculum that will account for 80% of your impact.

That will give you more room for your creativity and passion to cover the 20% of
the content that goes the furthest towards the performance expectations placed upon
you.

So, identify the top 20%… over time.

If you use the 80/20 Principle, be prepared to grow in efficiency, energy, and
success. Using the hidden tool of Pareto’s 80/20 Principle will make life easier and
more efficient for you and your students.

Share your hidden knowledge with colleagues and friends, and watch this
principle change your classroom forever!

The quickest way to apply 80/20 to the classroom is to empower your students with
efficient learning and organizing strategies.  Bring study skills to your school with
SOAR® Study Skills Curriculum.

To your students’ success,

Teachers: 20% of what you do matters, 80% doesn’t

Teachers can use the 80/20 rule to supercharge their student’s performance, focusing
their energy on the 20% that matters and letting GradeCam do the 80% that doesn’t.

The Pareto Principle or the 80/20 rule means that 80% of the effects come from 20%
of the causes. As stated in this article, management consultant Joseph M. Juran
suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto
published a paper observing that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the
people.

The 80/20 rule has found its way into almost every industry:

 In business: 80% of sales come from 20% of clients

 In software: Microsoft says fixing the top 20% of reported bugs, fixed 80% of
related issues
 In health and safety occupations: 20% of the hazards cause 80% of the injuries

So what does it mean for education?

20% of what teachers do in the classroom accounts for 80% of student

performance.

At first, this may sound like a discouraging statistic. However, this should be
encouraging because it means teachers don’t have to do everything well but focus on
the 20% that matters.

This doesn’t mean that 80% of what a teacher does doesn’t matter. The other 80%
needs to be done. But, since everyone’s energy and focus are limited, teachers can use
this knowledge to determine the vital 20% of their activities and put their energy in
those. The other 80% can be done later or, in some cases, not at all.

What are vital teacher activities?

 Instruction
 Assessment
 Redirection
 

What’s the other 80%?

 Paperwork
 Emails
 Meetings
 Pretty bulletin boards
 Elaborate organization systems
 Etc.

 
hat makes the biggest difference in your teaching? If you hop online to the places

where teachers hang out and ask that question, you will hear a bevy of answers. It

only begets more questions. Is project-based learning the way to go? How about

Genius Hour? Flipping the classroom? Inductive method? Constructivist approach?

Teach Like a Pirate? Too many choices can be paralyzing, and the only thing a

teacher knows for sure is how much they don't know. There's a simpler way. You

don't have to be everywhere and do everything to be a better teacher. You don't have

to spend every free moment chatting away on Twitter, reading blogs and going to

every EdCamp within a 60-mile radius. You can preserve your most important

resource -- your time. You just have to follow the 80/20 rule.

The Pareto Principle

In 1906, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto found that 80% of the land in Italy was

owned by 20% of the population. When applied more broadly, others noticed that

roughly 80% of the effects came from 20% of the causes. It has become a popular

principle in management and business. Microsoft fixed the top 20% of the bugs in its

system and 80% of the crashes were eliminated. In health care, 20% of the patients

use 80% of the health care resources. Ask any dean of students, 80% of the discipline

problems come from roughly 20% of the student body. The Pareto Principle suggests

that a few things produce the majority of results. Find out what is vital, ignore what is

trivial, and you can maximize results.

The 80/20 Rule in My Teaching

As a high school English teacher, I want my students to be critical readers and

thoughtful writers. That's what matters most. The methods to achieve this goal are

varied and plentiful. But what are the few things that can produce the biggest results?

Here are three aspects of my teaching that dominate my focus. 1. Ask Better

Questions Why It's Important -- Albert Einstein once wrote, "The important thing is

not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." If I can ask deep,

thought-provoking questions that value what my students have to say -- not what they

think I want to hear -- I can help them develop a discerning eye for the reading and

writing we do. What I Do -- I like interview shows like 60 Minutes, Charlie Rose, and

Alec Baldwin's podcast, Here's the Thing. Rose is a master of asking questions and

offering few answers. In each episode, he's fascinated by each guest's wisdom,

experience and insights. He knows how to probe their thinking. I seek to achieve the

same fascination and desire to hear what my students have to say. See Questioning in

Action:

 Inquiry-Based Teaching: Asking Effective Questions

 The Art of Questioning

2. Be a Captivating Speaker Why It's Important -- In some studies on the likability

of a speaker, words account for 7%, tone of voice accounts for 38%, and body

language accounts for 55%. It's not what you say, it's how you say it. To captivate my

students’ attention, I've focused on how I present the material. What I Do -- I watched

this TedxED Talk by Dave Burgess, author of Teach Like a Pirate, and it made me

rethink everything about how I offered my lessons. See Speaking in Action:

  When a Lesson Goes Wrong

3. Provide Meaningful Feedback Why It's Important -- For many students, feedback

is akin to criticism. Perhaps this is why so many essays end up in the garbage when

students leave class. Feedback is seldom practised with any enthusiasm. Yet feedback

is not criticism; instead, it is a caring and supportive act. It's a signal that a teacher is

dedicated to providing a constructive way to help students reach a higher level. What

I Do -- A few years ago, I stopped writing comments on students' papers. It took up

80% of my grading time and few students used the feedback I gave in the margins.

Now, my time is better spent conferencing. Instead of comments, I put a grade on the

paper and attach a rubric. When students ask about their score -- which they always

do -- I tell them to conference with me. This allows me to have a meaningful

conversation with them about their writing. It allows for a give and take. I can hear

their thinking and they can hear mine. It is much more effective than what I was

writing in the margins. 

Teaching is this hugely complex, challenging calling, and that's why I'm glad it's mine
— I don't foresee getting to a place where I'm like, “You know what? I've got this all
figured out. Done. Turn on the cruise control.”

To be honest, I think few of us will get there, and if we do, it will be after about 30
years and 100,000 hours of intensive, deliberate practice.

But we don't need to wait until we have it all figured out before we can start being
dang good teachers who make a huge impact with our careers. I think that all of us,
if we train ourselves to focus in, can fairly quickly become adept at the 20% of
things that yield 80% of the results.

Tim Ferriss is clearly not a teacher.

What is the 80/20 rule?

The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, is essentially this: for many
events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. It's named after
an economist named Vilfredo Pareto, who observed over a hundred years ago that
80% of the wealth in Italy was held by 20% of the population, and (get this) that 80%
of the peas in his garden were produced by 20% of the pea plants.

Peas and people. Pareto was intrigued.

Learning guru Tim Ferriss provides some other ways of phrasing the Pareto Principle
in his intriguing book, The 4-Hour Work Week:

 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs

 80% of the consequences flow from 20% of the causes
 80% of company profits come from 20% of the products and customers
 80% of all stock market gains are realized by 20% of the investors and 20% of
an individual portfolio
In teacherspeak, the Pareto Principle would be written like this: 80% of student
achievement results flow from 20% of the work we do with students.

So what does the 80/20 rule have to do with educators?

I think we have a wretched habit in education of over-complicating the most powerful

20% of educational practices. This is a crime we all commit together: teachers,
administrators, literacy coaches, authors, consultants, you name it.

At the risk of being labeled a reductionist, I've aggressively sought on this blog to boil
our problems down to their roots and develop similarly boiled down solutions. Let's
take a look at two examples of how Teaching the Core, thus far, has sought to bring
the Pareto Principle to bear on our issues.

The 80/20 rule and the problem of Common Core implementation

The Common Core are among the best lists of literacy standards we've yet seen in the
USA, but there are still far too many of them: 32 college and career readiness anchor
standards, with each of those standards containing several skills of its own. In
actuality, if I were to seek to develop every single one of the Common Core skills
for my 9th grade ELA and history students, I'd be trying to help my students
master over 100 skills.

Even if you're not in a Common Core state, the same is likely true for your own
literacy standards — 100+ goals.

Forgive me for a lack of optimism here, but if the future of education in America
depends on teachers being able to help students own and master 100+ literacy goals
per year, I think we're in trouble. Thankfully, the 80/20 rule is likely true of the
CCSS; there are a select few of those college and career readiness goals that will
garner the lion's share of the long-term benefit for our kids.

That's why I've sought to reduce them. I think the Common Core literacy standards
essentially boil down to this: we need to focus on increasing the quality and quantity
of reading, writing, speaking, and argumentative thinking that our students do.
Why? Because these things are the core of 21st century skills.

My non-freaked out framework for literacy instruction across the content areas is a
pretty mundane attempt at communicating that boil-down work, yet I think similarly
simple frameworks are the only way that content area teachers especially (and even
many ELA teachers) are going to internalize the importance of getting great at a few
key things — in this case, we need to get awesome at helping students think
argumentatively (especially in grades 6-12), and then to read, write, and speak in
ways that are increasingly complex and college/career appropriate. Keep in mind,
however, that I'm no fancy standards guy; I'm just a practitioner.
 Click on the image for a post that says
more about this framework.

Notice that while the framework allows us a simple, visual device for understanding
what (I think) matters most in literacy development, there's lots of work we can be
doing to get better and better at facilitating and teaching toward the five elements.
This framework gives us a framework for successive PD workshops (here are some of
my thoughts on how to do literacy PD). I've also found that it's highly motivating for
teachers — why? Because the 80/20 Rule is highly encouraging for those of us
who want to work smarter, not harder.

Ultimately, this framework allows us to spend a larger percentage of our energy on

the 20% of the standards that I think matter most for college and career readiness.
Great schools allow their teachers to focus in on and get great at the 20% of practices
that matter most. (This is essentially the central argument of Mike Schmoker's Focus.)

The 80/20 rule applied to our careers as educators

One of the key complaints I hear from teachers (and justifiably so) is that they have
no time to do all the things they're supposed to do. I think this is one of the leading
causes of burnout — and the Pareto Principle shows us that it's entirely unavoidable.

The liberating power of 80/20 comes from the fact that, once we start discovering
what 20% or so of our practices yield the vast majority of long-term results, we can
satisfice (see Number 4 of this post) the heck out of the 80% of things we do that
don't matter a whole lot, such as:

 Responding to every email the second it comes in. This isn't highly
impactful in the long run. Solution? Check your inbox one to two times per
day. Period. If you're an administrator, encourage your staff to minimize their
daily inbox checking.
 Worrying over mind-numbing paperwork. Not highly impactful in the long
run. Solution? Get it done and move on.
  Creating beautiful bulletin boards. Looks nice, right? But where's the long-
term impact? Solution = make your instruction awesome; your room needs to
serve its purpose.

Instead of exerting energy (and anxiety and stress do exert energy, my friends) on
things that don't matter, we ought instead to focus on daily improvement in three basic
areas:

 Our own mindsets and attitudes

 Our work with students
 Our relationships with other adults (both teaching colleagues and others)

In pictorial form:

The point here isn't that I've created something original — it's that I've sought to boil
our work down into its most potent core focus areas.

[ CITATION Ste18 \l 1033 ]

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Haberlin, S. (2018, March 23). Applying the 80/20 Rule to Teaching. Retrieved from
https://www.educationworld.com/:
https://www.educationworld.com/blog/applying-8020-rule-teaching

https://www.diona.com. (2021). Retrieved from https://www.diona.com:

https://www.diona.com/the-8020-rulereimagined

Janoska, L. (2018, April 16). Ways To Apply The Pareto Principle To Learning . Retrieved from
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learning-ways-apply

Koch, R. (1998). The 80/20 Principle The Secret of Achieving More with Less. London:
Nicholas Brealey Publishing Limited.
Michele. (2021, April 26). 80/20 Rule: How to Learn Languages with the Pareto Principle.
Retrieved from https://www.theintrepidguide.com:
https://www.theintrepidguide.com/the-pareto-principle-in-language-learning/

Schramko, J. (2017). Work Less, Make More: The counter-intuitive approach to building a
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