How to identify 20% of what you need to do that actually matters

Something that has helped me more than once is to imagine that 80% of the results I seek will come from just 20% of my efforts.

But how to figure out what are the 20% that matters?

I don't have a definitive method, but here's something that's been working for me lately:

• First, I write down the main outcome I'm aiming for with a given project or effort.
• Then, I list all the tasks that feel relevant to achieving that outcome.
• From that list, I pick one task that seems most essential, yes just one.
• Over the course of a week or more, I focus only on that task and observe: What other tasks do I feel pulled to do, even when I've already committed to my main one? Then I allow myself to slowly starting the other ones until I feel okay with it.

Doing it helps me see which tasks are genuinely critical versus which ones just feel urgent in the moment.

A personal example

I was building an MVP and kept getting flooded with new ideas.It quickly got overwhelming because I didn't have the time to implement everything.

So I picked the one feature I believed mattered most and focused only on improving that for two weeks.

When I revisited my long list of ideas afterward, most didn't feel necessary anymore, they were just distractions that seemed exciting at the time.