Pareto Principle in Action

My last experiment started as a practical examination of the Pareto principal, otherwise known as the 80/20 rule.  I had been making straight B’s on my Routing and Switching tests, and I wanted to consistently improve them to A’s.  In order to do that, I needed to know how much time I was spending getting that B. 

So I changed my study habits slightly, and decided to keep track of time spent studying.  I’d also read something about two competing South Pole expeditions.  One ran as much as they could every day.  Some days they didn’t go anywhere because the weather was bad.  The other went 15 miles a day, regardless.  They went 15 miles, and stopped for the day.  So I decided to try that principal with studying.  And the results were pretty remarkable.

I went from an average low B to a high A on the next test.  Hooray for me.   Anyway, this was the process. 

Read any previous notes I had made.

Grab a highlighter, and read 15 pages, highlighting what I thought was important.

Copy those highlighted notes into my printed notes.

Quit for the day.   Return tomorrow.

In doing this process, I found it only took about an hour a day, so I really had more time to work on other things.  Normally, I would have spent 3-4 hours straight on Saturday or Sunday reading and highlighting.  Granted, chapter 7 took me 387 minutes to complete, but that only averaged 64 minutes per day.  I have yet to take the test on that chapter, so I’m not yet sure how effective this process has been for that chapter.  But I do know the previous chapter resulted in huge positive results.

I think I missed a lot of the main part of this that makes it so effective.  The main effective part is that you study a little bit every single day.  It’s not a brain destroying group done once or twice per week.  It’s simply an hour per day, every single day.  In that way, your brain doesn’t have time to stop thinking about what you have studied.  On top of that, by the end you’ve read and reread your notes numerous times.  Then, the information is more likely to stick. 

We’ll see what happens with chapter 8.  Though I have to admit, single area OSPF just doesn’t interest me that much.

Outliers

I read Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers.  I think I've come to a distinct set of realizations afterwards.  It's a collection of things rumbling through a head that doesn't quite understand what is trying to be said.

I've watched through the YouTube version of Patterns of Conflict once, and I'm working on watching it again.  I've often wondered if I could write distinct lines in my life between things I read or done with the realization that those things are the future points of tomorrow.  They are the points when life departed and the old fell away.

I know Patterns of Conflict will have an impact on my life.  It already has.  Several statements have already begun sticking in my mind, leading to wanderings down paths that just aren't normally taken.  The ability to deconstruct and reexamine thoughts gives way to new perspectives.  I've often thought going to college is like staring in through the wrong side of a peep hole into a three story house, without the realization that there is even a house to be looked at.

I've also began wondering what would happen if one intentionally went to spend the 10,000 hours it takes to reach mastery of a subject.  In doing so, I contemplated buying the www.10000hours.com domain name, but it was taken.  I don't even know what I'm going to do with it, but I think I've got an idea.  I think it's what Driven was initially created to do.  I just never finished that project, and it went by the wayside.

I guess the goal is then quite simple.  Pick a project, and start a timer.  Figure out how much of your free time you have spent on the path towards mastery.  It would be great if you could suddenly know where you are on that path.  But without extensive time management analysis, I don't think that's possible.

But it might make a good story here and there.