Have you thought to yourself or even said one of the following?
- “I love the time I have for everything in my life.”
- “I have all the time in the world for myself, family, and friends.”
- “I need to find something else to do to push myself.”
The chances are those have never happened, and this is the more typical results.
- “I’m too busy to get anything completed.”
- “There aren’t enough hours in a day for me to do everything I want.”
- “My life is too busy to have any time for anyone or anything.”
What if I told you that there is a hidden life hack to take you from the latter to the initial statements? I researched this question, and here are the results.
Parkinson’s Law states, “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” If you are given a time frame to complete something, then you will complete it in that time. If you are given one year to finish something, it will take one year. If you are given a month, it will take a month.
A typical example of this, you are working on a project. Nothing happens. You can think of anything to write or put down. Then days or weeks but, and like magic, near the end of the allotted time, you have a flash of inspiration that finishes out the entire project.
Where did this idea come from?
In 1955, Cyril Northcote Parkinson wrote in an essay in The Economist in regards to his experience in civil service. Here is a quote from his first paragraph:
“IT is a commonplace observation that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Thus, an elderly lady of leisure can spend the entire day in writing and despatching a postcard to her niece at Bognor Regis. An hour will be spent in finding the postcard, another in hunting for spectacles, half-an-hour in a search for the address, an hour and a quarter in composition, and twenty minutes in deciding whether or not to take an umbrella when going to the pillar-box in the next street. The total effort which would occupy a busy man for three minutes all told may in this fashion leave another person prostrate after a day of doubt, anxiety, and toil. ”
Cyril Northcote Parkinson
How does this apply to me?
I know what you are asking, what does this have to do with me? Let’s look back into a situation earlier or currently in your lives that we all know all too well.
Scenario: the school paper
We are given homework, projects, and papers that always come with deadlines. Typically, these are the results we work between with every task.
Expectation
I will work a little of my project daily, hourly, weekly, and over the time was gave I will complete this.
The 7-day paper dream
- Day 1 – Research, if needed, start my paper
- Day 2 – Start writing my introduction
- Day 3 – Write some more
- Day 4 – A little more
- Day 5 – Completion of the draft
- Day 6 – Proofread with a resource
- Day 7 – Complete and turn in.
Reality
I will work on this project a little at a time……maybe.
The 7-day paper reality
- Day 1 to Day 5 – Watch videos, hang out with friends, work, surf the web, play video games, and many other things.
- Day 6 – Freak out that you have one night left and pull an all-nighter.
- Day 7 – Turn in a paper most likely of similar quality.
The reality of the matter is, this is a common occurrence we already deal with in our day to day lives. Be it in school, like this example, the workplace, and much worse, our own goals. The sad reality is that procrastination is only as good as the ability of the perfect world. We plan out the previous week again with some real world what-ifs. You are on Day 6 now on the practical example, but an emergency happens. What will you do? How will you get out of this?
How do I make use of Parkinson’s Law?
Now that you have an understanding of how this law works. We can start to look into ways actively we can increase the code to your needs.
Calendar shift
The Calendar shift as I call it manipulates your time table. Since the time given, for a task is proportionate to the completion, we can change the time. Let us say you were given two weeks to complete a task. What is stopping you from picking a day out in the first week where you can perform the job. Instead of giving yourself two weeks as delivered, you give it until that deadline you set. Parkinson’s Law will expand your productivity to meet your new timeline.
Things to remember
Parkinson’s Law maybe is excellent to control, but we have to remember. Setting up your tasks still need to be within common sense. If you know, you can finish something in a day, don’t leave it for a week, but also don’t set your deadline to an hour. When you start to add stressors that are outside of capacity, complexity will increase to meet that demand. Try to keep things within the scope of your abilities, and this will allow you to keep the complexity at a fundamental level. Too little or too much time drastically messes with the complexity of a task.
Weekly Challenge
Level 1: Task Management with the Pareto Principle.
We have learned previously that the Pareto Principle states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort. You are using this to choose the 20% most essential tasks of your day, week, or month. Now set deadlines for these to assist with setting up Parkinson’s Law into effect towards the 20% of the work you will need to use.
To learn about the Pareto Principle, you can view it here.
Level 2: Pomodoro it up
Now we have the goals set, how can we efficiently set your deadlines. As we previously discussed, the Pomodoro Technique can assist you in determining the time needed to perform a task. Adding all three of these, they will become a powerful friend.
The Pareto Principle will allow you to make the choices. The Pomodoro Technique will allow you to determine the time frame you need to perform this. Parkinson’s Law will allow you to fully use your time by ensuring you will complete these tasks in the best time frame.
To learn more about the Pomodoro Technique, you can view it here.
As always, I look forward to the best and can’t wait to hear about your successes and even failures. You can leave a comment below for other readers to get in, or email me questions and concerns.
