+++ Wednesday  5 February 2025 +++


February as Pareto Month
========================

The Pareto principle is valid for many systems. It is probably valid
for the effect other people have on us, the clothes we wear, the
packages we have installed on our laptop or desktop, and so on.

The principle predicts that focusing on the vital few and dropping a
big chunk of the other part doesn't significant change the overall
outcome. This can help us to get rid of a lot of cruft, waste less
time, and increase our overall well being.

The Pareto principle
--------------------
The Pareto principle states that often 80% of the outcome or results
stem from 20% of the causes. It is also known as the 80/20-rule.

Some examples:

For companies:
* 20% of the clients create 80% of the turn-over
* 20% of the products/services create 80% of the profit
* 20% of the products/services create 80% of the complaints
* 20% of the clients are responsible for 80% of the late payments

For people:
* 20% of our co-workers create 80% of our stress/anxiety
* 20% of our work gets 80% of the appriciation
* 20% of the recipes in our repertoire we cook 80% of the days
* 20% of our clothes we wear 80% of the time

For programmers:
* 20% of the code causes 80% of the bugs
* 20% of the code takes 80% of the time
* 20% of the features requires 80% of the effort

And so on.

There are many other examples and areas where this principle
applies.

Of course, above are just rules of thumb, and certainly it is never
really 20% and 80%. But roughly speaking, for many systems a vital few
of the inputs cause a large portion of the outcome.

Pareto and installed packages
-----------------------------
The Pareto Principle probably is also valid for the packages installed
on our laptop or workstation.

* 20% of the packages require 80% of the dependencies
* 20% of the packages are used 80% of the time
* 20% of the packages cause 80% of the update-time
* 20% of the packages cause 80% of the vulnerabilities

With this in mind, it might be a good idea to evaluate the installed
packages.

Many operating systems and distros have some way to distinguish
between manually installed packages and the other packages, either
installed as dependency for one or more manually installed packages or
installed as system package.

Try to identify which of the manually packages are part of the vital
few, and take a hard look at the other manually installed packages.
According to the Pareto Principle you could uninstall several of
these, without affecting much of the work you do on the system.
Hopefully this also reduces the number of packages installed as
dependency.

Pareto and RSS feeds
--------------------
This principle is most likely also valid for your RSS feeds.

* 20% of the feeds result in 80% of the interesting articles
* 20% of the feeds suck up 80% of the time you spend feed-reading

Try to identify the source of the meaningful posts, and drop at least
a part of the other feeds. It will take less time for your daily
keeping up to date, and at the same time have a better overall
experience.

Pareto and social media
-----------------------
The principle can also be applied on your social media use, no matter
if this is the Fediverse or one or more of the evil commercial social
media networks.

* 20% of the people you follow create 80% of the meaningful posts
* 20% of the people you follow create 80% of the toxic posts

Here too, you can try to identify who constitutes the vital few, and
unfollow at least a part of the others. This way you can up the
positive effect of doomscrolling and feel less exhausted by the toxic
posts.

February Pareto Month
---------------------
Make February the Pareto Month.

Focus on the vital few you really appreciate, and drop Marie Kondo
style at least a part of the rest.

* Focus on the software you really use and need and, uninstall some of
  the rest. With less packages installed there is less disk space
  needed and updates will take less time.

* Focus on the interesting and meaningful RSS feeds and ditch the
  rest. Spend less time keeping up to date.

* Focus on the people with the meaningful posts and unfollow a number
  of the others, and make doomscrolling great again.


Last edited: $Date: 2025/02/05 21:05:13 $