1. I identified the bottlenecks in my workflow
2. I used a better method for archiving and retrieving the information I am looking for.

It all started with applying te Pareto principle when analyzing my workflows.

In 1906, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that the 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Pareto also popularized the term “elite” in social analysis.

The term “Pareto Principle” was introduced by Joseph M. Juran when in 1941 became aware of the work of Vilfredo Pareto. He began to apply the Pareto principle to quality issues. Generalized, the principle states that 80% of a problem is caused by 20% of the causes.

The Pareto Principle can be stated in the business as following:

• 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers
• 80% of your complaints come from 20% of your customers
• 80% of your profits come from 20% of the time you spend
• 80% of your sales come from 20% of your products

In other industries:

• 20% of patients have been found to use 80% of health care resources

Fixing the top 20% most reported bugs, 80% of the errors and crashes would be eliminated.

I applied the Pareto Principle to time management to help me identify the causes that produce the most delays in my daily work. When I identified these, I was able to work in the correct direction to fix the true cause of the problem.

In order to do this, I recorded the time that I used to complete my tasks, and I also included the time for interruptions, breaks or destructions.

I then identified the 20% of the activities that take up 80% of my time. Can I delegate some of these activities? Can I reorganize my work in a way to minimize the impact of these activities on the time I use?

For example, I have found that I use a lot of time to search for files or notes that I have taken in the past. I changed the way I file my notes, I used an electronic filing program and the benefits were amazing. I am using Evernote. It is an amazing program that allows you to create notebooks to organize your documents, pictures, business cards and thoughts. The most powerful feature are the Tags. You can create as many tags you need and categorize your Evernote entries. Searching using the Tags is powerful. I freed up a lot of my time. There are a lot of online programs to choose from according to your needs.