When Bill Gates met Warren Buffett for the first time, Gates' mother asked them to share the most important factors for their success. Gates and Buffett both gave the same answer: "Focus".

When Warren Buffett follows the five-hour rule and spends 80% of his time reading and thinking, many people's reaction is predictable: "he can do it because he is Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world." I'll never get there, and I'll never get there. "

Because the truth is:Buffett has spent most of his time reading and thinking since primary school. Having more money or running a big company doesn't give you more free time.
Free time never appears silently. People won't have a lot of free time unless they retire. On the contrary, free time is the result of a strategy, the result of looking at time in different ways.

Curious about Buffett's unique strategy, I read several books about him, most of his annual letters to shareholders, and watched almost all of his interviews.

Buffett can easily make such a schedule because he uses the world's most ruthless prioritization, which is, of course, a good way.

Here are six strategies Warren Buffett has used during his career to have more time to read and think. I invite you to "copy" them so that you have more time every day to do the things that are most important to you.

When you read these strategies, it is important to note that these strategies are not like the typical combination strategies you see online, they are not random. Most people ignore a deeper pattern-his primary mental model.

BuffettStrategy 1:Kill a busy worker.作

Buffett crossed out almost all the tasks that CEO had to do from its calendar:

He never talks to analysts (Buffett estimates that a typical CEO spends 20 per cent of its time talking to Wall Street analysts).

He seldom gives interviews to the media.

He doesn't take part in industry activities.

He lived almost his entire career in Omaha, Nebraska, outside New York City.

He hardly attends any internal meetings like a typical CEO.

The important thing is that these decisions are not accidental.

Buffett's strategy has several basic facts:

20% of priority tasks will account for 80% of our results. Buffett's top five priorities are 20% of his 25 goals. For more information about the 80 + 20 rule, you can read my previous article: this should be your way to train yourself to be smarter.

What really threatens our time is not simply the interference of what we know to be wrong. Instead, the real threat is the "wolves in sheep's clothing"-activities that make us feel like we're working hard, but don't change the status quo in the end. Buffett's "three-step" approach is to prevent these!

The real challenge of prioritization is to say, "No!" It's easy to say yes. The real difficulty is to say no to busy work, because busy work allows you to cross off one item from your to-do list: fulfill your obligations to others, do a simple thing, and write an email.

Buffett strategy 2: only with those who you thinkPeople who can work together forever.

"if you can't imagine working with someone for the rest of your life, don't work with them for a day. Silicon Valley Angel Investor Naval Ravicant (Naval Ravikant)

Similar to the way Buffett scrutinizes his work activities, he also scrutinizes the people he works with.

Buffett only works with CEOs he trusts, who can achieve results, and he thinks he can work with them for decades.

As a result, he rarely negotiates and does due diligence before buying a company, nor does he interfere too much with the chief executive of the company he buys. In addition, he enjoyed talking to chief executives.

(note that the word "trust" causes Buffett to abandon acquisitions of companies that are financially attractive simply because he distrusts their chief executives.)

Buffett strategy 3: let thingsKeep it in a super simple state

Buffett has eliminated almost all the bureaucracy in his company. Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio company has nearly 400000 employees, but its actual headquarters has only more than 20 employees. This is one of the largest companies in the world.

Buffett's personal life is also simple. He lives in an inconspicuous house (where he has lived for 60 years) with an annual personal expense of only $100000.

In our careers, in our companies, in our lives, it's very easy to make things complicated. In fact, this is the norm.

When you make more profits, it's normal to hire more people. As you earn more money, it is normal to spend more and more money.

What is really powerful and unique is to keep things simple. It takes effort and skill. This is part of Buffett's genius.

It's strange to say that when you compare the way he might live with the way he chooses, one of the richest people in the world is also the biggest minimalist.

Buffett strategy 4:Focus on a few high-quality bets

Warren Buffett makes only a small amount of investment every year.

I remember when I first heard the news, I was shocked. "how can the richest investor in human history make so few deals?"

William Thorndike (William Thorndike), founding partner of the Housatonic Partners Fund, gives us the answer to this question in his book The Outsiders:

Buffett believes that concentrated portfolios will bring extraordinary returns, and that good investment targets are rare.

He told students many times that their investment results would improve if they were given a 20-hole card at the beginning of their career, representing the total amount they could invest in their investment career.

As he concluded in his 1993 annual report, "We believe that if policies that make portfolios more concentrated can increase investors' thinking about a company and increase their satisfaction with its economic characteristics before buying it, then such a policy is likely to reduce risk. "

In short, Buffett means:

"the trick to investing is to be there, watching the ball throw one by one, waiting for the ball to reach your best height. If people shout, "swing, you idiot!" "ignore them directly.

Buffett strategy 5:Focus on long-term investment

Buffett will hold his stock for a long time.

According to William Thorndike in his book Business outsider, the top five stock options he currently holds have been held for an average of more than 20 years.

By contrast, the average holding period of a typical mutual fund is less than a year. This means that investment activity is extremely low, which Buffett calls "almost lazy idleness".

Buffett used a similar concept in knowledge investment, which brought him a long-term return. In Buffett's only authorized biography, his biographer comments on what she has learned from Buffett:

What you learn and invest should be knowledge that can be accumulated, so that knowledge can be based on knowledge. So instead of learning something that may be out of date tomorrow, such as a particular type of software (no one even uses it two years later), choose something that will make you smarter in 10 or 20 years' time. I have been benefiting from this lesson now.

Buffett is not alone in considering long-term investments.

Sam Altman, president of YCombinator, the world's largest accelerator, says long-term thinking is "one of the few arbitrage opportunities left in the market".

Jeff Bezos (Jeff Bezos) measures the success of a new project in seven years, while most other listed companies measure it in three months.

Buffett strategy 6：Avoid catching up with the trend of technology

One might think that the greatest investor of all time would always pursue the latest technology to stay at the forefront of the times.

Interestingly, the opposite is true. Here are some examples:

There is never a computer in his office.

He has never used a stock market machine.

He doesn't have a smartphone.

These unique choices reflect some of Buffett's characteristics:

Buffett knows exactly what data he needs to know to invest.

He has enough confidence in his ideas that he is unwilling to do things that are popular with the public.

He takes the initiative to remove potential interference from the environment, rather than relying on willpower.

How to apply Buffett's core mental model?

Now, you understand. It is no accident that Warren Buffett has free time to read and think. That's what his life was designed for.

These are not random strategies. They all come from an important mental model: the 80-pound-20 rule. In fact, 20% of our efforts lead to 80% of the results in many areas of our lives.

In every area of his life, such as relationships, investment, technology, and setting priorities, Buffett is a master of relentlessly prioritizing a few important issues and abandoning everything else.

So, the question now is:How do you consistently and skillfully apply the 80 amp 20 rule to your life?