“It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play."

~Miles Davis

I have mentioned the 80/20 rule in a previous blog post, so writing a proper introduction to the concept made sense. If you haven’t read about it before, you are in for a epiphany… this could potentially change your life.

What is the 80/20 Rule?

The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, the law of the vital few or the principle of factor sparsity was originally observed in connection with population and wealth.  Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto noticed that 80% of Italy's land was owned by 20% of the population.  He then found a similar distribution in various other countries he surveyed. Since then, this principle has been successfully applied to sports, taxation, software, health and I have personally used it for many years when applying Six Sigma principles during my previous life as a Mechanical Engineer.  It wasn’t until I...