How to Find the Root Cause of Your ‘Hardest’ Problems

Mar 2018

It is tough to solve your problems if you don’t know the root cause – or the reason that they may be happening. In today’s advice column, you will learn about the Pareto Principle, also known as the “80-20 rule”. You will learn how it can help you uncover the root cause of your problem by seeing how Tess, an entitled Millennial, used it to help her with a ‘relationship’ problem.

From: Tess <tess_tickle_69@gmail.com>
Sent: January 12, 2018 3:41 AM
To: Rick Melnyck <rmelnyck@hotmail.com>
Subject: Advice needed

Hey Rick,

Need advice, I have been fighting non-stop w/ Barney, my Sugar Daddy. I don’t even know what we r fighting about half the time. Wtf should I do?

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Tess

From: Rick Melnyck <rmelnyck@hotmail.com>
Sent: January 12, 2018 6:54 AM
To: Tess <tess_tickle_69@gmail.com>
Subject: RE: Advice needed

Hey Tess,

Nice to hear from you.

Every time you fight, write down the reason., do that for a month because you need enough “fights” data to make it significant. Then Google the “Pareto Principle”, study it, and use it to identify the main reason for your fights.

Let me know how it goes,
Rick

From: Tess <tess_tickle_69@gmail.com>
Sent: February, 17, 2018 2:48 PM
To: Rick Melnyck <rmelnyck@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: RE: Advice needed

Hey Rick,

It worked! Thank u so much! See what I learned below…

Thanks,
Tess

The Pareto Principle is named after some Italian dude named Vilfredo Pareto, ‘supposubly’ he figured out that 80% of the land in Italy is owned by 20% of the people, yeah whatever. Anyways, it helps you distinguish the vital few significant causes of your problem from the trivial many causes of your problems.

So, I kept track of my fights with my ‘everyday Santa Claus’ for one month.

Here are a few examples of the 87 fights we had last month:

Fight #1: My ‘buyfriend’s’ little solider refused to salute

Fight #6: Welcome to Limp City, Population: Me!

Fight #9: He forgot to pay my rent and I almost got evicted.

Fight #45: We were about to get busy and once again he ‘bounced the check of love’

Fight #69: My ‘Splenda Daddy’ had a ‘failure to launch’

After a month, I categorized the reasons for each of our fights and then counted the number of fights per category and summarized it in the table below. I then figured out the percentage that each ‘Category of Reason’ was of the total to apply the Pareto principle.

After looking at the table and utilizing the Pareto principle, it turns out that the reason for 85% of our fights was because his ‘Veinous Maximus’ is usually more like a ‘Veinous Minimus’, yup sadly he has ED.

Turns out the Pareto principle wasn’t that hard for me to use after all!

I just needed a firm understanding of how to use it.

Time for a stiff drink before I send Barney a break up text. I’ll try not to be too hard on him…

Use it or Lose It!

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80-20 rule states that 80% of your problems come from 20% of your potential causes. It is a tool is used in business to help distinguish the few significant causes of problems from the trivial many causes of problems. Consequently, you can prioritize efforts on the most few significant causes of the problem to make the most efficient use of your time and resources.

The Pareto principle can be applied to many areas of our personal lives to improve them.

Some examples:

Who are the 20% of the people in your life that account for 80% of your happiness? Takeaway – Consider spending more time with them.

Who are the 20% of the people in your life that cause 80% of the bullcrap drama you deal with? Takeaway – Consider spending less time with them.

What are the 20% of the actions you take that bring 80% of the results? Takeaway – Consider spending more time on these activities.

What are the 20% of the items in your closet that you wear 80% of the time? – Takeaway – Consider giving away or getting rid of some of the stuff you don’t wear!

How to: List out all the reasons for your problem, then figure out what 20% of the causes are responsible for 80% of your problems. Then try to figure out how to eliminate those causes.

List out all the activities in an area of your life, then figure out what 20% of the activities are responsible for 80% of your successes. Those are the things you should be spending your time on and trying to improve.

When to Use The Pareto Principle:

When you are trying to find out the cause for something happening, or when you want to prioritize things such as your time, tasks, who you spend time with etc. We will have more articles on different ways you can use the Pareto principle in the days, weeks and months to come.

Discuss…

Can you think of any other examples of how you can use or have used the Pareto principle in your life? Let’s hear them!

Thanks for reading and until next time, remember…PYMFP!
Rick

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How to Find the Root Cause of Your ‘Hardest’ Problems

Use it or Lose It!

When to Use The Pareto Principle:

Discuss…

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