Remember a few weeks back when I wrote to you about goal-setting? These last few weeks I’ve managed to get more done because I’ve had clearly defined goals. Goals certainly help move things along. They bring clarity to a world of possibilities. However, there have been weeks where I can’t seem to get any practice at all. This is not good.

Why does this happen? Isn’t setting goals enough? No, it’s not. You see, there a few things you have to understand before you can become a more productive individual. The Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG is a time-intensive game. It takes a chunk out of your day to play a few games and get some real practice logged. It’s not something you can do for 20 minutes and call it quits for the day.

Keeping this in mind, I’ve realized that if you are to get the most amount of practice possible done in a week’s time, then you have to be pretty good at managing how your time is spent. If you’re an average person, any one of your weeks could be spent doing homework, working at the office, going to the movies, or chatting via IM with your buddies on the internet. We’re all very busy with something.

When I thought about this, I asked myself, “Why can’t I find more time for practice?” I stumbled upon two rules:

1)     Pareto’s Law

2)     Parkinson’s Law

Pareto’s Law states that 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs. You can also say that, “80% of a person’s time is wasted by 20% of the activities and/or interruptions he or she becomes involved in.” That’s a pretty bold statement.

This “law” comes from the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. It’s a ratio he discovered with the pea plants in his garden. He found that 20% of his pea plants produced 80% of the pea pods he would use to re-plant or to cook with. He used this same ratio to explain the distribution of income in society. It became terribly simple. There are other ratios like 90/10, 95/5, and 99/1: they exist in different situations.

The traditional definition of “time management” assumes that you are extremely busy and have a mountain of things to accomplish every day. You have a complex web of to-do lists, things on your calendar, reminders, bills to pay, people to see, and other things to do. You’re just busy, you know? This method of oversight requires you to focus intently on each task from a long list of tasks and somehow complete that item to move on to the next one. This works if you’re the type of individual who likes this stuff. Unfortunately, keeping your focus on one thing is hard enough. It’s slightly more difficult when you have a long list of other activities on your list. Long to-do lists are daunting: it’s time to eliminate this concept.

When it comes to becoming a more productive Yu-Gi-Oh! duelist, the purpose is to free up more time to spend on the 20% of the things you do in the game that account for 80% of your results in competitive play. For competitive players like you, this means that you require more time to practice and test your decks. Let’s face it: even with dueling software to make your games faster, it still doesn’t suffice. What’s the point of participating in more duels if you don’t have the block of time to play those games?

Fortunately there’s a solution. It’s time to eliminate the 20% of things you do that take up 80% of your time. Dan Kennedy said, “80% of the average person’s time is wasted every day.” Take a look at your day: how much of it is spent doing things that really aren‘t all that important to you and that you are only engaging in to fill in the void of boredom? Sometimes we do things on a daily basis to just to fill up time.

A question to start asking yourself at least three times a day is, “Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?” You should ask yourself this question to remind yourself what you are doing. If you are intent on spending your time on unimportant things then you will find more stuff to do that isn’t important. It’s easy to fall into that trap of, “I’m doing something so that means I’m being productive.” This is an attractive form of self-trickery.

Sometimes the term “efficiency” is synonymous with finishing things faster. However, doing things with efficiency does not make them important. If you use a ridiculously fast PC to do only word processing and Internet surfing, then you’re not using its full potential.

Parkinson’s Law and the Art of Self-Illusion

Parkinson’s Law is interesting and explains a great deal about why some people just can’t seem to get things done on time. I think it explains why most college students can’t seem to get anything done either (besides the obvious).

Parkinson’s Law states, “A task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.”

Have you ever found yourself in a position where you have 24 hours left to go before a major research paper is due and somehow you manage to put it all together with the bare essentials? Then it ends up getting you an “A.” How many times has that happened to you? How many times have you said, “Why didn’t I just get it done sooner if it was that simple in the first place?”

That’s the magic of Parkinson’s Law. The science project only takes four or five hours to complete at most, but your instructor gives you a three month deadline. On top of that you’re given many smaller homework assignments to complete in tandem with that project. The deadline sets you up for failure. You have three months, but the project only takes four or five hours of dedicated work. However, you perceive it to be complex because it has a three month deadline. You say to yourself, “Oh man, it must be tough if the teacher’s giving us three months.” Wrong. Some of the blame lies in your perception of the relative difficulty of the assignment. Also, most people don’t break a large assignment down into smaller “mini-projects” that are easily accomplished.

And doesn’t it always turn out that when you have to complete that project at the last minute, it gets in the way of something you really wanted to do? 99% of the time that’s the case. You spent three months doing things you would have rather done and now you’re stuck on that darn paper. I was a wizard at this form of self-trickery in high-school and college, trust me.

Let’s Put This Together

Okay, so what if there are two laws that explain why we waste time on things? How does this relate to dueling?

Your mission is to extract as much time from your schedule as possible. A lot of the time, people invent things to do on a daily basis to seem busy. Your goal, however, is to find more time to engage in valuable activities like relaxing, playing video games, and practicing for upcoming tournaments.

Practice is the most valuable activity for any competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! duelist. The more practice you engage in, the more skilled a player you will ultimately become. Understanding what people, things, and activities take up 80% of your valuable time is helpful. The big payoff comes when you “eliminate” those time wasters and have more freedom available to spend on things you truly enjoy. Performing that 80/20 analysis on everything helps put things into perspective and might relieve a lot of your stress, too.

Parkinson’s Law is another biggie. It’s very useful to understand this principle. You’ll be able to avoid spending a lot of energy on something that really doesn’t require that much time. Think of the previous science project example. Does it ever take that long to accomplish? It never does.

Here are some practical steps to take with you this week:

• Take a good look at what you do on a weekly basis. Ask yourself, “What are the 20% of things that I do, things in my life, or people in my life that account for 80% of my unhappiness, stress, and wasted time?” Try to eliminate those forces.
• Try setting more ambitious deadlines for your current school projects. You know that school paper that you have until the end of the semester to finish? Try finishing it in one week.
• Try breaking down large assignments into “mini-assignments” and complete them as fast as possible. Set strict deadlines on them. It’ll force you to focus on what’s important.

Thank you for reading! Talk to you next week!

—Bryan Camareno