Sturgeon’s Law and the Pareto Principle

Sturgeon’s Law is named after science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon [23]. He coined the saying, “Ninety percent of science fiction is crud, but then, ninety percent of everything is crud.” Back in 1951, he called it Sturgeon’s Revelation, but everybody just called it Sturgeon’s Law instead.

A simplified version of what he said is, “Nothing is always absolutely so.” If you prefer having numbers in it, then just stick with the 90% of everything is crap.

Now, the idea behind Sturgeon’s Law is similar to another maxim called the Pareto Principle, which is also known as the 80/20 rule—the law of the vital few. A simplified definition of the Pareto Principle is this: 80% of the effects that anyone produces are derived from 20% of the causes.

The Pareto Principle is named after Vilfredo Pareto [24]. Pareto observed that 80% of the wealth of Italy only belonged to 20% of the population. People have observed this to be true in many things as well, such as:

• 20% of input produces 80% of output
• 20% of a product’s features produces 80% of its usage
• 20% of all the workers produce 80% of the results
• You only watch 20% of all the channels on cable TV, and you spend 80% of your total viewership on those few channels

As you can see, the only difference between the Pareto Principle and Sturgeon’s Law is the percentages. But essentially they mean the same thing. The next question is, what do they have to do with building good habits and breaking bad ones?

The lesson here is that you should focus on the 20% (Pareto) or 10% (Sturgeon) that made a difference in your resolve. Sure, there were times when you failed, but there were times when you succeeded in maintaining a new habit (or breaking the old bad one).

Now, when you focus on the 20% or 10% that brought you the best results, it doesn’t matter how much you failed. Focusing on the details of that 20% or 10% will help you produce 80% or 90% of the results later on. Study and analyze the factors that came into play for your small successes and then put them into practice.

With all of this in mind, in the next sections of this book, we will go over four essential habits that you can work on that will help you stay motivated and practice better self-discipline.