The Pareto Principle – Relationships

Before I begin here, I’d recommend getting a basic understanding of what the Pareto Principle is. I believe it can be applied to most situations in our life, our relationships being key among them. To be clear, when I say relationships here, I mean all our relationships, not just our relationship with our significant other.

As we grow up we create and develop so many relationships in our lives including our parents, friends, significant other that it really becomes a task to juggle all of them in a healthy way. So here’s a few practical things I make sure I do so I know for sure that the people in my life are getting the attention they deserve –

1. Remember the important days like Birthdays & Anniversaries

I was not kidding when I said these points would be ultra practical. For some reason, people really appreciate it when you call them on important occasions like birthdays, anniversaries or whatever else might be important to them. I personally understand that people have lives and my birthday or anniversary probably isn’t at the top of their priority list.

A lot of people aren’t wired like this which is why it’s super helpful to note down every important event on a calendar and set up alerts. I use Apple’s native calendar app and it has an alert that goes off every time it’s somebody’s birthday or anniversary. The second I see this alert, I shoot them a text or call them.

One more tip. This is a trick me and my girlfriend use and it has virtually eliminated my problem of not being able to remember any events or commitments that we used to make to other people or to each other. What we do now is, every time we make a plan or a commitment, we put it in a shared calendar. This way each of us is aware and can plan for the other. She can also see my work schedule and knows when I’m busy or when I have time to plan something. Super simple & completely life-changing.

Psychologically speaking, remembering the important days has a significant effect on a person. It shows that you cared enough to remember (even though it was your phone that reminded you).

This is super simple and super effective. If you think you’re better off remembering all this stuff and recalling it from memory, trust me, you’re not.

2. Develop a sense of Empathy within yourself

This may seem like an obvious point. It isn’t. Most people tend to overestimate how empathetic they are.

First off, what’s empathy? I usually define it as being able to put yourself in another person’s shoes. I’m a pretty big movie buff as well so I also tend to say it’s understanding what the other person’s character motivations are. A really good movie will have a protagonist with clear motivations. you’ll understand why they did what they did. I’m asking you to apply the same understanding to people close to you.

About 3 years ago, I remember being in a car with one of my best friends and his girlfriend at the time. I was driving both of them home and along the way both of them had a bit of an argument about equal pay for women in the workplace. My friend refused to acknowledge the problem existed while his girlfriend believed differently.

I chose to stay out of this and was mostly silent throughout the whole car ride. I tend to stay out of these discussions plus it’s way more enjoyable being a spectator sometimes. You also get to learn quite a bit about people. We dropped his girlfriend off first and when she left, he turned towards me and asked me for my opinion. I told him that they both raised sound points but that’s irrelevant. I gave him my thoughts pretty clearly. They were –

• You were completely apathetic to her position.
• You failed to recognize that maybe there’s a teensy chance that you might be wrong and she may have a point (she did).
• You failed to make her feel listened to.

Empathy & empathizing with the person in front of you are skills that need to be developed. Chris Voss (a former FBI hostage negotiator) talks a lot about “Tactical Empathy” in his book on Negotiation, “Never Split The Difference.” If anyone knows how to talk to people, it’s a former hostage negotiator and if he’s emphasizing the importance of empathy, I’m sure there’s at least some importance to it.

3. Use Time-Blocking

Time blocking is a technique I use to make sure that when I commit my time to a given person, they have my complete attention for that amount of time.

For example, ever since I’ve started going back to the gym after the lockdown restrictions have been lifted, I have made it a commitment to do it in the mornings. Why? That’s because the evenings are for me and my girlfriend and whatever dog we may be fostering at that point in time. With very few exceptions, the time from when I get home from work to the time I lay down to sleep at night, my attention is towards my family.

Similarly, if I have committed to calling a friend over the weekend, you can be sure that I will be giving them my undivided attention during that call. I notice way too often people FaceTime their loved ones and actually scroll instagram while they do that. I mean, what even is the point?

Give the important people in your life the time they deserve. Block off specific portions of your time for them. No matter how rarely you do this, it’ll make sure the conversations you actually have with them actually matter and leave an impact. I have a friend that I call maybe once a month but when he calls, he has my complete attention.

4. Do the odd nice thing for the people in your life

Credit for this goes to my girlfriend. Before I go any further, I just want to emphasize that my girlfriend is probably the nicest human being I know and she makes me a better person every day. This concept actually came from her.

This doesn’t have to be every day or even every week or every month. Just choose someone you feel like you haven’t connected with in a while and do something nice for them. My girlfriend and I like to cook so that’s usually what we go with. A friend of ours is married and a mother of 3 (2 humans and 1 dog). During the pandemic, everyday stared spending all their time at home and the burden of cooking for everybody fell on her.

My girlfriend being the nice person she is decided we’re going to cook them a meal and drop them off. It’s random acts of kindness like these that I encourage you to do. Examples of these can be –

• Give your stressed out friend a call and talk to them. Tell them everything’s gonna be alright.
• Send your parents some flowers. I’m sure they deserve it.
• Surprise your significant other with breakfast in bed.
• Tell your subordinate at work how much you appreciate them.

The list can go on and on. The point is. Just do something. It’ll make you feel great and the sheer randomness of it will leave a significant impact on the person and your relationship with them as a whole.

Use these 4 techniques and I guarantee you’ll see a noticeable improvement in your relationships with the people in your life. I also encourage you to check out my other posts on applying the Pareto Principle to other aspects of life.

Relationships. Relationships. Relationships.