What is the 80/20 rule and why does it work?
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Some people have explained what it is, here is a shot at why it works:
First, a project can be divided into many different tasks. Each task requires some amount of effort, and contributes some amount of completedness to the project.
At the beginning of the project, 0% of the total effort has been done, and 0% of the total completedness of the project is done. At the end, 100% of the total effort has been done and 100% of the total completedness has been done (in both cases, percentages are out of what actually was done, not out of what was planned). As the project goes from the first state to the second, there will reach a point when the two percentages add up to 100%
In general, the earlier tasks tend to be more impactful for the effort they take, while the later tasks tend to be less impactful*. This means that the point where effort+completedness=100% will usually be somewhere between 50:50 and 100:0. 80:20 is a nice round midpoint.
*When this is not the case, it usually results in the project failing
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