Download Download PDF. Translate PDF. Who do you want to become? Happiness, Richard Koch says, flows from doing less, not striving more. No surprise there, perhaps. But he also asserts that achievement and success can come from doing less.
There is a free lunch after all. And the taste is out of this world. The key, he says, is to work out the few things that are really important, and the few methods that will give us what we really want, and to act on them, while ignoring the mass of trivia that normally engulfs our lives.
It sounds simple, and it is…but nobody has explained the idea before in such a convincing way, nor based it so persuasively on a proven phenomenon.
He has pioneered the idea that we can achieve more if we relax, enjoy life more, and focus on the few things that matter uniquely to each individual. Steve Gersowsky was also instrumental in encouraging me to write a book that would be accessible to everyone. I owe a huge debt to Laurence Toltz for his critique and encouragement every step of the way.
He has been extraordinarily generous with his time and many of his ideas are incorporated here. Laurence himself is an author, so please look out for his excellent books. The other person who has influenced me greatly is Jonathan Yudelowitz, a psychologist and business coach. Jon is a world-class coach, specializing in helping CEOs and their teams work together to beat competition. Special thanks also especially to my friend and personal assistant Aaron Calder, who has helped with the book in innumerable important ways.
My toughest critic has been Nicholas Brealey and a better book has been forged in the fire of his feedback. A bouquet also to Angie Tainsh and Victoria Bullock for their excellent work on the conception and marketing of the book, and special thanks to Sally Lansdell for her superb editing, figure design, and encyclopedic knowledge of transportation in Bedrock. The pointers from that experience have been included here so that many new readers can benefit.
If you could work a two-day week and yet gain much better results and pay than you do for a full week now, would you be interested? If you could find a simple solution to your problems by following a way that always works, would you be interested? If this way applied not only to making a living, earning money, and finding success, but also to the even more important areas of life - the people you love and care for, as well as your happiness and fulfillment - would you be interested?
Of course you would. How come? If we understand the way the world is really organized - even though that may be completely opposite to what we expect - we can fit in with that way and get much more of what we care about with much less energy. By doing less, we can enjoy and achieve more. This book is about action, but less action This is an intensely practical book, but also a very unusual one, in that it is concerned with less action rather than more. We do more of the things that make us happy, but since these are only a small proportion of everything we do, we can do fewer things in total and still transform our lives.
We think more, do much more of a few things, and do them better and more intensely, but do much less overall. This says in essence that 80 percent of results come from only 20 percent of causes or effort. This application to individuals caused tremendous controversy. Some critics said that it was a perfectly respectable business idea but that it would never work outside business.
Yet readers who tried it out wrote to say that the principle had changed their lives. Starting as a business book, published by business houses, and sitting on the business shelves in bookstores, somehow it has also become used and appreciated as a self-help book.
Seven years later, I receive a steady and increasing stream of letters and emails from people everywhere around the world.
Very few mention their business. They simply say what the Big Idea has done for their happiness and effectiveness: how it has helped them concentrate on the few relationships and issues that are really important to them, increased their sense of freedom, turbo-boosted their careers, and enabled them to escape the rat-race treadmill. Using the principle, they say, has taken away the guilt that used to make them waste their time, working so hard at things that were not important to them.
This is certainly true for me personally. In I ditched a conventional career. I quit being a management consultant and started living fully again. I have homes in London, Cape Town, and the sunniest part of Spain, and I take time to enjoy each place - often with very good friends staying - for several months a year. Yet I am not retired. Why this new book? First was Steve Gersowsky, a friend who runs a restaurant in Cape Town.
Steve is bright and dynamic, full of life, and very savvy. Found it too difficult. All too much. Heard how great the book was, tried to get the hang of it, but I failed. I had thought that the book was breezy and easy. But I had to admit that although some of it, including most of the bits at the back helping individuals use the Big Idea, was easy to read, there were also illustrations about business that put off many non-business people.
As the business section came first in the book, it gave the impression that the Big Idea was difficult, whereas in truth it is very simple. Can you write a book for people not in business or without a tertiary education? The idea of focus is easily understood.
Chapter 1 will outline the concept that 80 percent of what we want is generated by 20 percent of what we do.
Therefore when it comes to getting the results we want, to help the people and causes that are really important to us, only a very few things we do really matter.
The rest are just a waste. So if we learn to identify the things that matter most to us and add the greatest richness to our lives - if we learn to focus on the things we believe are most important - we discover that less is more. By concentrating on fewer things - the few really important aspects to our lives and the ones that work the way we want - life suddenly becomes deeper and more rewarding. This book will help you work out what truly matters to you and how to focus on these things.
The second idea - that we can create more with less - is not so obvious. The law of progress says that we can always obtain or accomplish more of what we want with less energy, sweat, and worry. Overview It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results. Warren Buffett Modern life is a mistake. Instead of working to live, we live to work. If we had more self-confidence and the right philosophy, we could accomplish even more than we do now and enjoy our work more, yet labor for far fewer hours and conserve a larger part of our energy for our family and social lives.
This would be a major change in how we experience life. Here progress has run backwards. We used to enjoy more relaxed and balanced lives, with a more relaxed lifestyle, more free time, greater commitment to family and friends, greater social equality and fraternity, more civility to strangers, less stress and depression, less dependence on alcohol and drugs, and less addiction to money and power.
We are now more conscious of ourselves and our individuality, but many of us are terrified of our new freedom.
We worry far more, desperately seeking the illusion of security, which, despite our increasingly frantic striving, recedes ever further from us. Life today divides into the fast track or the slow track.
Both are less agreeable than the broad track of yesteryear. For many the slow track means economic insecurity: low earnings, low social standing, anxiety about unemployment, and missing out on the increasing material delights enjoyed by those on the fast track.
But the fast track is not without its hazards. For many it means a single-minded obsession with getting ahead, total commitment to the job at the expense of personal relationships, and a frenzied lifestyle where work takes precedence over everything else.
If it were so applied, we could enjoy life much more, work less, and achieve more. In reality, the best way to achieve more is to do less. Less is more when we concentrate on the few things that are truly important, not the least of which is happiness for ourselves and our loved ones. What is this life, if full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
And if we randomly selected the people, something like that would probably happen. Yet imagine a wonky world, where the 20 people achieve more results than the other Make the wonky world even stranger.
Imagine that not only do the 20 people achieve more than the 80, they achieve four times more. This is exactly the wrong way round. We would expect the 80 people to achieve four times more than the Now, in this curious and lopsided world, we imagine the reverse: the 20 people somehow manage to get four times the results of the other Surely this wonky world, though not totally unthinkable, must be very rare.
What if one day we discovered that far from being unusual, the wonky world was actually typical - that the world routinely divides into a few very powerful influences and the mass of totally unimportant ones. We find that the top 20 percent of people, natural forces, economic inputs, or any other causes we can measure typically lead to about 80 percent of results, outputs, or effects.
We seem to be programmed - perhaps by our liberal culture or by an innate sense of fairness - to expect the picture shown in Figure 1, where causes and results are balanced roughly equally: Instead, what we get is something totally different, more like Figure 2: Figure 1 - Causes and results: What we expect Figure 2 - Causes and results: What really happens Here are some other illustrations: Five people sit down to play poker. In any large retail store, 20 percent of the sales staff will make more than 80 percent of the dollar value of sales.
Studies consistently show that 20 percent of customers lead to more than 80 percent of profits for any particular firm. For example, Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada recently worked out how much profit each of its customers provided. It was staggered to learn that 17 percent of customers yielded 93 percent of profits. More than 80 percent of scientific breakthroughs come from fewer than 20 percent of scientists. In every age, it is the celebrated few scientists who make the vast majority of discoveries.
Crime statistics repeatedly show that about 20 percent of thieves make off with 80 percent of the loot. Who gets the most fates in speed dating? The latest craze for single people in New York and London — though it may have fizzled out by the time you read this — is speed dating. It works like this. Put around 20—40 people in a room. The women sit down at tables and the men move from seat to seat.
Each couple has between three and five minutes to talk before the man moves on to the next woman. The next day they email the matches with names and contact details. A major speed dating operator in the US confirms that most dates go to relatively few participants.
In some cases, 30 percent of causes may lead to 70 percent of results. In Indonesia in , Chinese residents comprised less than 3 percent of the population, but owned 70 percent of the wealth. Out of 6, languages, - the top 1. They had to send the package to someone they knew personally, who then had to pass it on to another personal contact who they thought might know someone who knew someone close to the stockbroker, and so on.
Those three people were more important, in getting the desired result, than all the other inhabitants of Boston.
Investigation revealed that people, who met in 6 bars, caused the whole epidemic. Less than 1 percent of the population of Colorado Springs was therefore responsible for percent of the disease. Much more than 80 percent of wealth created from new businesses comes from fewer than 20 percent of people who start them. Yet only one of them - Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who called himself Lenin - actually caused a lasting revolution. Thus 1 revolutionary out of more than 3, - 0.
Though this is an extreme example, history is full of cases where a tiny minor ity of players have diverted its whole course. To be sure, the 20 percent or fewer of people who cause 80 percent or more of results - whether good or bad - are not randomly selected.
They are not typical. They are interesting because they produce results that are at least 10 or 20 times greater than those produced by other people. As the high performers are not 10 or 20 times more intelligent than other people, it is the methods and resources they use that are unusually powerful. There are always a small minority of very powerful forces and a great mass of unimportant ones. No prize for guessing the species.
A very small percentage of meteorites falling to earth produce more than 80 percent of the damage. Far fewer than 20 percent of wars produce more than 80 percent of casualties.
The overwhelming majority of baby seals in Alaska die young; 80 percent of the survivors come from 20 percent of the mothers. Wherever you go, fewer than 20 percent of clouds will produce 80 percent of rain.
Less than 20 percent of all recorded music is played more than 80 percent of the time. If you go to a concert, whether rock or classical, the old familiar pieces - a tiny portion of the total repertoire available - will be churned out time and again. Of investments made by a successful venture capitalist, 5 percent of them provide 55 percent of cash, 10 percent produce 73 percent, and 15 percent yield a total of 82 percent.
Fewer than 20 percent of inventions have more than 80 percent of impact on our lives. In the twentieth century, nuclear power and the computer probably had greater influence than the hundreds of thousands of other inventions and new technologies. More than 80 percent of food comes from far less than 20 percent of land. Also, fruit typically accounts for much less than 20 percent of the mass or weight of a tree or vine. And meat is a reduction of vast amounts of digested grain or grass.
What makes Coca-Cola so much more valuable than any other soft drink on the planet? Minute proportions of hops and other flavorings. Diminutive causes, massive results. Finally, evolution presents a stunning example of selectivity. One percent of species that have ever lived on earth, biologist Richard Dawkins estimates, constitute percent of the species now living.
There is a big imbalance between causes and results. Most causes have little result, a few transform life. But this is wrong. It is not true that because I benefit from the principle, somebody else must lose.
To object to improvement on the grounds that it is elitist is wrong-headed: progress is desirable and helps everyone. Perfection and equality are equally impossible, and in my opinion equally undesirable. They are all tools that improve life for everybody. When we do, other people benefit as well.
Everybody would be better off. Would there still be a top 20 percent and a bottom 80 percent of everything? Unless there was, no further improvement would be possible.
Fortunately, that is not going to happen: we will always have something to improve. It can make us happy, fulfilled, and relaxed. We start by creating more with less… Chapter 2: Create More with Less Many might go to heaven with half the labor they go to hell. Ben Jonson All human history, all progress in civilization, involves getting more with less.
Nearly 8, years ago, humans moved from hunting savage animals and gathering wild fruits to a system of agriculture, cultivating land, and domesticating animals. Our ancestors got much more and better food with much less struggle and danger. Until years ago, 98 percent of the working population labored on the land. Then a new agricultural revolution used machinery to transform productivity. Today in developed countries, agriculture employs only 2—3 percent of the workforce, yet produces vastly more food, which is also more varied and nutritious.
The highway of economic progress in the past years has also been more with less: identifying the few very productive forces and methods the 20 percent and multiplying them, so that more results can be obtained from fewer resources. Smaller and smaller amounts of land, capital, labor, management, materials, and time have been used to generate larger and better outputs: more steel for less iron ore, capital, and labor; more and better cars for less energy and cost; more consumer goods of every type, with more features and higher quality, at ever lower prices.
Just 40 years ago, a few massive, clunky computers were made with enormous effort and cost. Computers keep getting cheaper, smaller, easier to use, and more powerful. They exemplify more with less. Every material advance of humanity - in science, in technology, in living standards, in housing, in food, in health and long life, in leisure, in transport, in everything that makes modern life so much richer and more fun than before - gives more with less.
We can often get more with less simply by leaving something out. Algebra does this: it lets us compute more easily by leaving out the numbers, the basis for all computer programming breakthroughs. The Sony Walkman, a brilliant innovation, is really a cassette player minus the amplifier and speakers, yet it creates a fantastically versatile way of listening to music anywhere.
A dry martini makes a great drink by cutting out the Martini. It is scant exaggeration to say that more with less is the basic principle by which modern science, technology, and business advance living standards everywhere. If we know what results we want, therefore, we can look for a super-productive way to get those results.
Every time, more with less is possible, provided that we identify the golden 20 percent: the people, methods, and resources that are extremely creative and productive. Companies and countries that devise ways to deliver more value for less effort, peoplepower, and money flourish; but they can never rest on their laurels, because there is always a way to deliver even more for even less and somebody will soon find it.
The modern principle for individuals is more with more. Life in the fast lane turns into work in the fast lane. There is certainly more challenge, more stimulation, and more money, but there is also total submission to work demands, more burnout, and pervasive anxiety. How come we successfully use more with less for science, technology, and business, and yet insist on more with more when it comes to our working lives?
If more with less works for companies and economies, it should work for individuals as well. In fact I know it does, from personal experience and from seeing many friends and acquaintances getting more with less: more satisfaction, more achievement, more money, more happiness, better relationships, and a more balanced and relaxed life, from less blood, toil, tears, and sweat.
Many of the things we do absorb energy but are worse than useless. Worry is a prime example. Worry is never useful. When we find ourselves worrying, we should either act and not worry, or decide not to act and not worry. If we can act to avoid a bad fate or reduce its chance of happening - and the action is worthwhile - then we should act and not worry.
Worries will always arise but we can do without them, instantly deciding to act or not act, but in either case not to worry. It will take time. The Calvinist notion that toil and trouble are essential for personal advancement is so deeply rooted in the culture and working assumptions of modern life that it will take a generation to uproot it.
We can start using it and benefiting right away. How to get more happiness with less effort More with less is a practical tool that delivers on two promises: It is always possible to improve anything in our lives, not by a small amount, but by a large amount.
A much better outcome must be sought alongside lower effort. To expect more with less may seem unreasonable, but this is precisely the reason that amazing improvement is possible.
The trap in making more effort to improve things is that we continue making the same kind of effort. Instead, it should be plain that in making the startling demand for more with less, we are going to have to dream up a great breakthrough. By deliberately cutting back on what we put into the task and yet asking for much more, we force ourselves to think hard and do something different. This is the root of all progress. You need to get to the other side of town in a hurry.
Your alternatives are to walk or run. Walking will take forever. Running is quicker, but more effort. To run would be to make the very modern blunder of seeking more with more. We demand, quite unreasonably, a much better result with much less effort. But since we know that more with less is possible, we continue thinking until we have a more with less solution.
How can we get across Bedrock much faster but without the slog of running? Like the waitress at the prehistoric diner, we could rollerskate with less energy than it would take to run, yet arrive quicker. Or we could go one step further and jump on the back of a friendly brontosaurus. The more with less chart might look like Figure 4. Easy but useless. You could draw attention to yourself, maybe becoming president of the debating society or winning an athletics event.
But the boy or girl you are after may not notice or care - a high- effort, low-reward approach. This may work, but only with extraordinary effort. Or you could simply go up the object of your desire, put on your best genuine smile, and ask for a date - easy and just as likely to work.
This example is obvious, but you can draw a more with less chart for anything in your life. I am not saying that we should take the path of least resistance or never dedicate ourselves percent to an activity or cause that is dear to us.
The choice is ours. If we go for the right activities, we can work effortlessly and achieve a great deal, or we can put everything into what we do and achieve even more. Think of any great scientist, musician, artist, thinker, philanthropist, or business leader. Do they achieve by trying to do something they find easy and natural, or by trying to do something that is hard and unnatural?
Do they achieve because they work hard, or because they find it easier than other people to excel in their chosen arena? Do they work hard because they feel guilty, or because they identify with their work, believe in it, and love it? Even when they work hard, their work is always economical - they get a huge return on their effort. Saying thanks, showing appreciation, displaying affection, watching a sunrise or sunset, caring for a pet or a plant, smiling at a casual acquaintance or stranger, committing a random act of kindness, enjoying a walk in a beautiful place - these are all ways of getting more with less.
The reward is out of proportion to the effort. If you think about it, the only way to take leaps forward in our lives is to demand more with less. The beauty of more with less is that it can be applied to anything, it always works, and it always gives an answer you can keep up throughout your life. More with less is easy to maintain and extend. A bit of upfront thinking is a small price for a huge lifetime reward.
Anything we do is much more difficult the first time, and gets progressively easier the more we do it, to the point where it becomes easier to do it than not to do it. A terrific example is exercise. Walking five miles is extremely tough the first time you do it, but if you do it every day, nothing could be easier.
In fact, both body and mind get used to anything we do after about two weeks: it becomes second nature. Why work hard for nothing, when a few habits that become second nature can give you a healthy rhythm every day? We get more reward with less energy if we adopt rewarding habits earlier rather than later. Yet a few habits can have a phenomenal effect on our happiness throughout life - we get a massive bonanza from a little upfront effort.
Just choose seven super-rewarding habits that will be your friends for life. Choose your seven high-payoff habits carefully! Get more happiness for less effort! Pick the few high-payoff habits that will make you happiest. The list is far from exhaustive, so add any habits that have the potential to make you very happy, then master your seven.
What will we be most upset to see run out? The answer is probably time. Sophocles At the age of 30, an extremely successful Wall Street trader decided to go to Tibet, enter a monastery, and undertake rigorous spiritual studies.
How long will it take me if I study intensively and try extremely hard to cut the time? It took just a moment of inspiration, while he was relaxing, thinking about nothing much. Time is like that: cussed when we try to speed up, a dear friend when we slow down.
Time is perhaps the best example of the principle, and the one of most value to our lives. Once we realize this, our lives are transformed.
Suddenly, there is no shortage of time. Product Catalog 23 Catalog 23 includes even more stock black anodize profiles, new workstation components, additions to metric fasteners, and more. The online catalog is user-friendly and interactive: Add products to your personal wish list Share, save or print your wish list Search by part number, description, name, or keyword Share pages and parts via email or social media Access YouTube videos that provide additional details Interactive Catalog Request Hard Copy Catalog Download Product Basics.
Lean Solutions Hard Copy. Machine Framing Hard Copy. Workstation Hard Copy. Automation Hard Copy. Material Handling Hard Copy. Ergonomics Hard Copy. Robotic Hard Copy. Facility Solutions Hard Copy. And real life can work that way too: because there's nothing but your own inhibitions stopping you from doing the things you want to do. It just requires a little more effort than the video game because in real life you are both the video game player making the choices and the character doing the work.
Less is more. Let's take financial success: I love his ridiculously simple financial advice: "Save and invest 10 percent of your income before you receive it by having it automatically channeled into a savings account. For me, the hardest part of the book to apply to my own situation or to even fathom, because it gets a little Zen is the portion on time: having more time by doing less: "We have never had so much time, yet felt we had so little.
After I became a parent, I'd done nothing but complain about my lack of time as I rushed to change my daily patterns to accommodate the sudden loss of the free time to which I'd become accustomed. Just because some French novelist says something doesn't make it true - but I'm mature enough to recognize a flaw in my own behavior when I'm confronted with it.
Since reading this, I've applied myself to making full use of my time. I still complain it comes out before I can stop it! But at the end of the day, I can look back at my time spent and see less and less waste. It's working! I'm getting things done now in short spans of time that I couldn't have even imagined before. Savor life. That's up to me. I could sit around complain about it, or I could accomplish big projects an hour at a time. You stop worrying about what other people think of you.
What could be easier? More rewarding? What could electrify your life more? This was a very interesting concept to stumble upon. I think I did a bad j This was a very interesting concept to stumble upon. I think I did a bad job explaining it lol, the author did it in a much better way. What I liked the most is that you can apply this concept not only to work, or studying but to relationships and in saving money.
Jan, 18, Apr 19, Kelly rated it really liked it. This book was a wonderful, quick read. This book was a nice, simple discussion on how one can carefully and thoughtfully eradicated wasted time and low-value added activities a This book was a wonderful, quick read. This book was a nice, simple discussion on how one can carefully and thoughtfully eradicated wasted time and low-value added activities and focus one's time on things that really matter to you and make you truly happy.
The reader could be tempted to dismiss this book as so simple as to produce a "well duh" response. However, if you're like me you'll note that while simple these things aren't necessarily broadly practiced, and as a result, many miss out on the simple ideas conveyed in a masterful way in this book. Additionally, I really appreciated his critique of common views of success and the overly acquisitive nature of society today. Really, really a great book. View 2 comments. Jan 05, Catherine rated it it was ok Shelves: bookcrossing.
As with many books of this type the basic idea of this is simple: focus your time and effort on the things that are most productive - that make you happiest in this instance. So, at its harshest for a gadabout like me at any rate Koch says to focus on the relationships that really matter and forget the rest.
Now doing that would save me an awful lot of stamps at Christmas and guilt over unsent e-mails, but I'm not sure I have the strength to do it. Anyway, that would be my personal difficult bi As with many books of this type the basic idea of this is simple: focus your time and effort on the things that are most productive - that make you happiest in this instance.
Anyway, that would be my personal difficult bit, other people would find some of the other stuff hard, but I have to say that I do find the tone somewhat patronising - it's the repetition and the 'yes you can do it, look where I've got'-ness. I suspect it's meant to be encouraging but So: basic idea I can see the sense in, but style of telling didn't like. May 01, Noah rated it it was ok.
Sep 05, Derek Palmer rated it really liked it. The concept of the book after reading sounds so obvious, but it's something that on a daily basis I don't think about. View 1 comment. Nov 10, Jane rated it really liked it. The first edition of the novel was published in , and was written by Richard Koch. The book was published in multiple languages including , consists of pages and is available in ebook format.
The main characters of this business, self help story are ,. The book has been awarded with , and many others.
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