Piles and decisions

A Post a Day in May 11/31

I am not a numbers person, as my erstwhile colleague, Darlene, would attest. She did the budgets in our marketing department, while I did the writing: a perfect partnership. But even I can grasp the relationship of the number 80 to the number 20: 80 is bigger, 20 is smaller. Apply that as a principle to explain something and it becomes evident where one’s effort or focus should lie: on the 80 part. Right?

In fact, it’s a principle — the Pareto principle, which states that “for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes”. It’s named after an Italian economist who determined that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population [source]. Today, the principle is applied in many areas, including in business (80% of your business will come from 20% of your clients) and in sport (20% of players result in 80% of points scored).

The other evening on the news, I heard it used in relation to a person’s wardrobe: The woman being interviewed said that, generally, we wear 20% of our wardrobe 80% of the time. It took me less than a nanosecond to realize that this use of the Pareto principle definitely applies to me, especially now that I am no longer in the full-time work world. The two years I spent working from home during Covid saw me radically change my sartorial habits: I simply rotated through only a handful of favourite (read ‘comfortable’) items, no longer succumbing to the false need for a different outfit every day. As for shoes, I simply wore Birkenstocks. No one could see my feet via Zoom, anyway.

Now, almost a year since leaving full-time work and heading into the warmer season, I am keenly aware of just how many things I have hanging in my closet that I never got around to wearing in the winter. Will I simply drag them all downstairs and exchange them in the ‘seasonal totes’ for summer gear? Or will I make the effort to get rid of that 80%, which, truthfully, never saw the light of day?

I think it will take me three stages of sorting:

1. I’ll apply the Pareto principle first: Choose clothes for the 20% pile. This is pile A. What’s left is pile B, the 80% pile.
2. Next, I’ll apply the “Would I buy it today?” test to pile B? If I would buy it today, I’ll set it aside temporarily into pile C. If I wouldn’t, I’ll put it immediately — without second thought — into pile D, which is the giveaway pile.
3. Lastly, I’ll apply the “status quo vs purposeful possession” test to pile C by asking of each item, “Am I keeping this only because I already own it and, therefore, can’t bear to get rid of it?” (the ‘status quo’ reason for keeping something) or, “Am I keeping this because I truly genuinely want to have it in my wardrobe because I will wear it again?” (the ‘purposeful’ reason for keeping something). If the answer is ‘purposeful’, I’ll put the item into pile A; if the answer is ‘status quo’, I’ll put the item into pile D.

At the end of this, inevitably fraught and painful, sorting process, I should be left with a reasonably-sized pile A; piles B and C should be non-existent; and pile D should be satisfyingly large. I’ll put pile A back into my closet. I’ll take pile D to where I take my give-aways. Then, I’ll enjoy a celebratory beverage.

For the moment, however, this is all just good theory. And it is a good theory, wouldn’t you say? Having now written about it, I feel honour-bound to put it into practice. Stay tuned: We are, after all, only on Day 11 of my May posting madness.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo by Moses Janga on Unsplash