bigger the house, the more rooms that need to be cleaned. Electronic gadgets
need to be learned, set up, stored, Bluetooth-paired, and ultimately fixed! Pools
need to be cleaned. Pets need to get walked, groomed, and taken to the vet.
Boats put in and taken out of the water.
With three school-age kids, I think my suburban lifestyle is practical. But
once the kids are all out of the house, I will be too! I envision getting rid of
almost everything I own (I’ll pack up the sentimental stuff—there won’t be
much—and put it in a climate-controlled storage facility) and just spend a year
renting an amazing apartment in a different city each year until I get bored with
that or die. New York, Barcelona, Amalfi, Sydney or Melbourne, Hong Kong,
La Jolla or Napa, who knows where!
The lesson isn’t that all “things” are bad—I have some toys to drive and two
cats. It’s just that all things require time, and we should think twice before
acquiring them.
While we may not want to limit our possessions to only that which fits into
one small red bag, we can probably take inspiration from the Dalai Lama, who
clearly doesn’t need objects to feel happy.
The 80/20 Mindset
The important takeaway from this chapter on the Pareto principle is not to run
around with a calculator and actually do the math to figure out 80 percent and 20
percent calculations in different areas of your life.
It’s more important to have a mindset of identifying the few things and
activities that will give you outsized returns. You want to:
•
Look for shortcuts.
•
Do the most important things exceptionally well, and the rest
just “good enough” or not at all.
•
Develop your skills to be exceptional in a few targeted areas;
don’t try to master everything.
•
Realize that you can work less, stress less, and increase your
happiness by figuring out the 20 percent of goals and activities that
are most important to you.
How Does This Apply If You’re A(n)...
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