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I’ve been thinking about the Pareto principle (80–20) recently, about it’s role in design and in life. It’s sadly been flattened into a productivity slogan for many, quoted everywhere. But it isn’t about doing less. That misses the point. There’s too much focus on the 20%.
The 80% isn’t dead weight. It’s doing quiet, essential work. And without it, the 20% has nothing to push against.
Designers have this baked in, even if we never label it as 80–20. For example, a usable website needs predictable navigation, readable line lengths, normal scrolling, obvious hierarchy. A brochure needs to be rectangle pages, with a contents and pages of legible text.
Break those basic rules and you don’t get something interesting. You get something distractingly frustrating. It’s the 80% and it matters. Conventions, patterns, things people don’t notice because they work.
It’s not boring. It’s practical. The fastest way to lose someone’s attention is to make them work hard for no reason.
Yes the interesting part of a design is the 20%. The styling. The details. The look. However, you need most of the experience to feel safe so you notice this. The 20% needs the 80%.
Marketing takes this too far now, trying to stand out. It uses the anti-pattern everywhere, making products and sites 100% “interesting”. Everything shouts. Everything moves. Everything wants attention. The result isn’t engagement. It’s fatigue and division.
The 80% earns trust. The 20% earns attention.
The 80% reduces cognitive load. It says, “You’re in good hands”.
The 20% gives a reason to care. It adds texture. Life. It creates memory.
So good design doesn’t eliminate friction everywhere. It places friction deliberately.
This pattern shows up in life too. When everything is too smooth, days fly, weeks disappear, time speeds up.
Routines take over. Decisions vanish. You move from one thing to the next without ever really arriving. That’s life on autopilot. Your 80% is more like 100%.
Meaning comes from small interruptions.
No, we’re not talking about chaos. You just need pauses – small, intentional frictions. Things like taking a different route, trying a different coffee, pausing before the next task, doing something slowly, or changing a routine just enough to notice it.
These moments wake the brain up. They create memory. They give shape to time.
This is not optimisation or productivity. It’s awareness.
So if you feel like time is flying by, there’s a lesson here.
Protect the 80% that keeps things steady. The routines, the auto-pilot.
Disrupt the 20% on purpose. Wake your brain up with anti-pattern.
After all, familiarity keeps us moving. Difference reminds us we’re alive.
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