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Greetings from above,
Why did the productivity guru get fired? He spent 80% of his time optimizing the 20% that didn't matter. (Classic mistake.)
ALEX'S STORY: Last year I was drowning in tasks. I had a Notion database with 147 "priorities." I was working 12-hour days and somehow getting further behind. My to-do list was breeding.
Then I did something painful. I printed out every single thing I was working on and asked one brutal question: "If I could only do THREE of these, which ones would actually move the business?"
The answer was obvious. And horrifying. I'd been spending 80% of my time on tasks that generated maybe 5% of my results. The content I was agonizing over? Nobody read it. The "optimization" I was doing? Premature. The meetings? Pure theater.
That week I killed 80% of my tasks. Revenue went UP. Stress went DOWN. The Pareto Principle isn't just a theory. It's a scalpel for cutting through your own BS.
Today's prompt will show you:
How to strip any problem to its fundamental truths (First Principles)
How to identify the 20% of actions driving 80% of your results (Pareto)
What to STOP doing immediately (the elimination strategy nobody talks about)
Let's build your competitive advantage!
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🎯 THE PARETO FIRST PRINCIPLES SYSTEM
Most productivity advice tells you HOW to do more. This system tells you WHAT to eliminate.
The problem with most strategic analysis? It adds complexity. You end up with more frameworks, more tasks, more "priorities." This prompt does the opposite. It combines two of the most powerful mental models in existence:
First Principles Thinking: Strip away assumptions. What do we actually KNOW vs. what are we just accepting as true?
Pareto Analysis (80/20 Rule): Find the vital few actions that drive disproportionate results. Eliminate everything else.
This prompt creates:
Radical Clarity: Your problem stripped to its fundamental truths
Ruthless Prioritization: The 3-5 actions that will actually move the needle
An Elimination Strategy: What to stop doing immediately (this is where the magic happens)
⚙️ THE PARETO FIRST PRINCIPLES PROMPT
💡 What this does: Forces AI to analyze your challenge through two lenses simultaneously. First it strips your problem to fundamental truths. Then it identifies the vital few actions that drive results. The output is a lean execution plan, not more complexity.
Adopt the role of a Strategic Systems Architect who obsessively eliminates waste and builds solutions from fundamental truths. You're someone who worked at McKinsey for 10 years, got frustrated watching companies overcomplicate everything, quit to build lean startups, and now ruthlessly applies Pareto analysis and first principles thinking to cut through noise and identify what actually moves the needle.
#CONTEXT:
You are analyzing a business challenge, goal, or project to identify the highest-leverage actions using both the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) and First Principles Thinking. The goal is to strip away assumptions, identify what truly drives results, and focus only on the critical few actions that matter most.
#RESPONSE GUIDELINES:
Your analysis must follow this exact structure:
1. FIRST PRINCIPLES BREAKDOWN
- Strip the problem down to fundamental truths
- Identify what we know for certain vs. what we assume
- Question every assumption
- Rebuild from the ground up
2. PARETO ANALYSIS
- Identify the 20% of inputs/actions that drive 80% of results
- Identify the 80% of inputs/actions that only drive 20% of results
- Quantify impact vs. effort for each action
- Ruthlessly prioritize
3. HIGHEST-LEVERAGE ACTIONS
- The 3-5 actions that will drive the most results
- Why these actions matter (first principles reasoning)
- How to execute them (concrete steps)
- What to eliminate or ignore
4. ELIMINATION STRATEGY
- What to stop doing immediately
- What assumptions to challenge
- What "best practices" to ignore
- What complexity to remove
#TASK CRITERIA:
- Be brutally honest about what's waste vs. what's essential
- Use specific examples, not vague principles
- Quantify impact whenever possible (time saved, revenue generated)
- Challenge conventional wisdom
- Focus on action, not theory
#INFORMATION ABOUT ME:
- My Current Challenge/Goal: [INSERT YOUR SPECIFIC CHALLENGE]
- My Current Approach: [INSERT WHAT YOU'RE DOING NOW]
- My Available Resources: [TIME, BUDGET, TEAM, TOOLS]
- My Constraints: [ANY LIMITATIONS OR RESTRICTIONS]
- My Success Metrics: [HOW YOU MEASURE SUCCESS]
Take a deep breath and work on this problem step-by-step. Question everything. Eliminate ruthlessly. Focus on what actually matters.Input needed:
Your specific challenge or goal (be detailed)
What you're currently doing to address it
Your resources and constraints
How you currently measure success
Output you'll get:
Your problem stripped to fundamental truths
A Pareto table showing impact vs. effort for each action
The 3-5 highest-leverage actions with execution steps
An elimination strategy (what to STOP doing)
A lean 4-week execution plan
📤 EXAMPLE OUTPUT
🔧 PRO TIPS
1. Be specific with your challenge: "Grow my business" is too vague. "Increase monthly revenue from $10K to $25K in Q1" gives AI something to work with.
2. Include what you're currently doing: The prompt analyzes your existing approach to find waste. Without this, you get generic advice.
3. Run this quarterly: Your 20% changes as your business evolves. What was high-leverage last quarter might be low-ROI now.
4. Actually eliminate: Most people use this prompt, get the elimination list, then ignore it. The power is in what you STOP doing, not what you add.
📋 SUMMARY
First Principles strips away assumptions to reveal what you actually know vs. what you're guessing.
Pareto Analysis identifies the vital few actions that drive disproportionate results.
The Elimination Strategy is where the real gains happen. Stopping low-ROI work frees energy for high-leverage actions.
80% of what you're doing is probably not moving the needle. Find the 20% that is.
📚 FREE RESOURCES
📦 WRAP UP
What you learned today:
The Pareto First Principles System - How to strip any problem to its core and find high-leverage actions.
The Elimination Strategy - What to STOP doing is more important than what to start.
Quantified Prioritization - Impact vs. effort scoring removes gut-feel decision making.
This prompt transforms strategic planning from "add more tasks" to "eliminate the 80% that doesn't matter."
No more drowning in priorities. No more pretending everything is urgent.
You now have a system to find the vital few actions that actually move your business.
What did you think about today's edition?
And as always, thanks for being part of my lovely community,
Keep building systems,
🔑 Alex from God of Prompt
P.S. I’m launching this tool soon: promptcopilot.io, feel free to try it out!
