Principle of least effort

The principle of least effort is a concept based on the Pareto principle, which suggests that individuals should focus their efforts on the most effective and efficient actions, rather than expending unnecessary energy on less productive tasks. This principle emphasizes the importance of prioritization and strategic decision-making in order to achieve maximum results with minimal effort.From: Psychological preconditions for flourishing through ultrabilitation: a descriptive framework [2020]

Loneliness and person-centred health care

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Published in Stephen Buetow, From Loneliness to Solitude in Person-centred Health Care, 2023

Stephen Buetow

Informed by science but functionally integrating it with the arts, person-centred health care is a hub of transformation. Through facilitating character-building, among other things, this care strives to help persons overcome obstacles, including discomfort, and maximize their potential. The care emphasizes these persons’ strengths,104 including paradoxically the capacity to apply the principle of “least effort” to gain power over themselves and transform being alone or lonely into self-loving and life-affirming states like solitude.105

Psychological preconditions for flourishing through ultrabilitation: a descriptive framework

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Published in Disability and Rehabilitation, 2020

Stephen A. Buetow

Functioning beyond the “will-to-survive” posited by Schopenhauer [25] and Darwinist theories of evolution, the will-to-power is a natural determination by persons to discharge their psychological and spiritual strength to realize their personal ambitions. However, persons are most likely to satisfy this drive for power by using their time and effort to identify and develop what they are good at [26]. This prescription for empowerment draws on the Pareto (80/20) principle of “least effort”. The principle suggests that 80% of good results come from 20% of efforts and hence persons achieve “digestive” efficiency in managing their appetite for power by expanding this 20%. This expansion tends to relate to what it is that persons – including those with disabilities – do well, do easily and enjoy doing [9, 26]. In contrast, Frankl [27] focuses on a “will-to-meaning” rather than an appetite for power.

Principle of least effort

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Loneliness and person-centred health care

Psychological preconditions for flourishing through ultrabilitation: a descriptive framework