The 80/20 Rule For Students

The Pareto Principle also called the 80/20 rule is one of the most powerful study techniques I teach in my study book. Simply put, success in school is about knowing WHAT to study and WHEN. In my study book, I combine that with a concept from the 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People that takes away all the guesswork for you. It’s priceless to any student stressed about about exams, lab reports, quizzes and term papers.

I’m not willing to give that away for free here in this blog post, but let me put it in perspective for you.

We ALL have 168 hours in a week. There are students DUMBER than you who are getting better grades than you. How can that be?

Dumber than you, but better grades – The ONLY reason that can happen is because they have BETTER STUDY SKILLS AND HABITS.

They do what works and stop doing what doesn’t.

They buy books and programs like my study book, my speed learning and speed reading videos to LEARN HOW TO LEARN.

These products are a fraction of the cost of a textbook and are 100% guaranteed or your money back.

These dumber students know they need the extra help – the key ideas and concepts that help them get better grades faster.

In a previous post I talked about (NOT) taking drugs to study. There is NO NEED TO — when you can study effectively.

The 80/20 Rule is one of the principles I teach in my study book. It shows you HOW to determine what to study and most importantly what NOT to waste your time studying. Imagine ONLY studying what will be on the exams… How easy would that be?

Get your hands on my study book now and stop wasting valuable study time. I leverage the VERY BEST strategies and apply them to studying. Strategies business people use to make millions of dollars, athletes use to win gold medals…

I show you how to use these strategies to get the best grades with the least amount of effort.

13 Responses to “The 80/20 Rule For Students”


  • I bought your book for my 15 year old son, because despite his high IQ 120 (which actuaaly could be as high as 143)he struggles with ADD non hyperactive. It rears its head in the typical way,(focus,organizarion,etc. His weakest areas are working memory, visual memory,sequencing, and auditory processing. Skills like targeting sports and math and science CONCEPTS are learned easily. His superior reasonong skills 95.5 percentile work well for him except when the topic has many details,rules and/or he is not interested in learnimg about it.

    Because he learns concepts quickly he is overly confident that he has learned it all, so he takes few notes.
    He also has a writing deficiency, which combined with working memory makes it difficult to take notes and keep up with what is being presented. Anyway because of the working memory problem, details fall to the wayside and no longer exist as something that he must know. So he is convinced that
    he knows the material and does not need to study. He used to do ok in earlier grades that had less details,but now he is failing courses that intellectually he should have no problem with. How can he apply the 80/20 concept when he doesn’t think there is a 20 percent that he doesn’t know and thinks he has it 100 percent down?

  • Hi Marc,

    I know that you emphasise study skills in this post but surely a student’s mindset is equally important in them being able to have success at school. No matter how hard a student studies if they believe that they are not capable of getting the results they wont get them and no amount of study will help.

    Cheers,
    John

  • Speaking of mindset… I have been hearing alot about a cd that emits two different frequencies which they say the brain fuses to a middleground difference which targets different mind sets such as alertness or focus. It creates a no effort 20 minute 2X per day meditation that they say will improve a persons desired mental state and even help ADD and working memory. Have you heard of this, and if so what are your thoughts. Is this just alot of huey?

  • hi dr.
    i really need help with studying huge paragraphs quickly and effectively.i bought your book too but i still cant fingd any good technique for very good memorization.

    please help me !!!!!!!!

    thank you

  • Greetings

    I’m not sure whether I understand the 80/20 concept or not. Is it basically just a planning thing so that one time manages his schedule well or is it something completely different?

    Thanks.

    • The 80-20 concept or Pareto Principle is used to determine what to focus on to get the best results with the least amount of effort – AS QUICKLY as possible. Without it, you could be wasting valuable time and effort doing things that don’t matter. I see this often with students who get stressed because they always run out of time and never get ‘on top of’ their to do lists. I explain this in detail in my study book you can buy at http://www.Get-Better-Grades.com. I know it sounds simple and it is, but HOW it’s actually done is where all the rewards are. Knowing WHAT to do is not enough – HOW to do it is essential.

  • Hi,

    I’ve just purchased your e-book and I don’t quite understand about some of the techniques.. especially the 80-20 concept and the circle of influence concept. Would you please explain more?

  • Hi,
    I would inform you that when I read books like novels, text books etc. I really understand while reading the pages. But problem is that I could not get the meaning afterwards. I sometimes get confused about subject matter I am reading at that time I go through the pages I have read. What could be your suggestion to remember the previous subject matter while reading afterwards?

    Thank you.

    • The problems you mention here are not related to speed reading – they have to do with COMPREHENSION and UNDERSTANDING. It’s not because you can speed read that you will understand what you’re reading.

      One of the principles of cognition (how we learn) requires that you go from what YOU KNOW to what you DON’T KNOW in steps. If you go from a beginner’s text to an advanced textbook without an intermediate step, chances are you will struggle.

      If you are not comprehending, understanding or remembering what you’re reading – you’re probably skimming or skipping – going too fast. Speed reading is NOT about going fast for the sake of it. It’s a skill that takes time to master. If you are struggling to remember what you’re reading, you need to go slower to UNDERSTAND what you’re reading.

      Don’t worry, this is a common problem – trying to go too fast, too soon. Give yourself time to adapt and you’ll soon realise you can SPEED READ AND REMEMBER MORE.

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