The 80/20 rule (officially called the Pareto Principle) is a general rule that states that 80% of all effects come from around 20% of the causes. The idea behind this rule is that it can be applied to basically any field. In business, the Pareto Principle states that 80% of all your profit is going to come from 20% of your products. It also means that 80% of all work is done by 20% of your employees. It can apply to basically any field that you can think of, including sports, math, healthcare, and fitness. In this article, we are going to look at how the 80/20 rule can be applied in various fields to give you a better understanding of the principle as a whole.

In Healthcare
The 80/20 rule can definitely be seen in healthcare. As a general rule of thumb, 80% of all healthcare resources will go to helping 20% of all patients. Those 20% of patients are typically the elderly or those with persistent health issues who need round-the-clock care.

In Sports
In sports where analytics are king, the 80/20 rule dictates that roughly 80% of a team’s wins will be due to around 20% of their players. A baseball analyst applied the 80/20 rule to baseball and found that: “So 15% of the all the players last year produced 85% of the total wins with the other 85% of the players creating 15% of the wins.” While not exactly 80/20, it does show how the general principle can be applied in real life.

In Fitness
By now, you can probably guess how the 80/20 rule will apply in the world of fitness. Roughly 80% of your weight loss or 80% of your muscle gain can be attributed to roughly 20% of your exercises. Because of this, many fitness experts actually recommend against using varied routines, instead, they advocate for focusing on simple routines that contain a few effective exercises.

How Can The 80/20 Rule Help You?
The 80/20 rule, once you understand it, can be used to help make various aspects of your life more efficient. For example, when trying to balance your budget, you can save yourself time by identifying the 20% of expenses that make up 80% of your monthly bills instead of going through every single expense. You can save time by focusing on the 20% of exercises that actually cause the most weight loss.

So, now that you know about the 80/20 rule, see how it can be applied to your life.