This is How to Save Time By Understanding Parkinson’s Law

Usually, I give myself a certain number of hours to write/edit each blog post, let’s say 4, excluding research. And you will never guess how long it actually takes me to write/edit them – yup…4! Which is a perfect segue to the opening paragraph of a book called Parkinson’s Law…

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. General recognition of this fact is shown in the proverbial phrase ‘It is the busiest man who has time to spare.’ Thus, an elderly lady of leisure can spend the entire day in writing and dispatching 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 the 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 mailbox in the next street. The total effort that 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.” ¹

Does this scenario sound familiar to you? Welcome to Parkinson’s Law, a phenomenon that I think most of us have fallen victim to many times through our lives, including this self-improvement blogger.

On that note…let me see if I can write this blog post in 3 hours…

The First Time I Heard About Parkinson’s Law…

Was when I read The 4 Hour-Work Week, an NY Times Bestseller by Tim Ferriss. The idea behind Parkinson’s Law is that for many of us what we have to do expands to fill the time that we (or others) have allocated to get it done. In other words, “Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.” ²

It all revolves around the idea of the imminent deadline. If I give you two months to do something, it will take you two months to do it. And if I give you a month to do something, it will take you a month to do it. If I give you a week to do it, you will do it in a week. And if I give you 24 hours to do it – you will figure out a way to strip it down to its bare-essentials due to the time pressure and get it done. (this assumes it is possible to complete whatever task I gave you in that time-frame, obviously, you can’t build a house in a high rise in a day!) But I think you get the point.

The Origin of Parkinson’s Law…

…actually had nothing to do with self-improvement or how humans procrastinate, or the disease. Rather, it was a summary of a statistical proof by Cyril Northcote Parkinson, which showed that the number of people who worked in the British Colonial office increased even though the amount of work decreased. Basically, he was making a jibe at governments and bureaucracies, saying that most bureaucracies can and will create enough work for themselves to keep busy and justify their existence without proportional output.

So, even though self-improvement was not the original intent of the law, does not mean we cannot use it for self-improvement. And the fact that Parkinson used the example of the lady taking all day to send the postcard, while it took a busy man 3 minutes shows its applicability to our lives.

Why it happens?

According to Ferriss, “…the unimportant becomes the important. Even if you know what’s critical, without deadlines that create focus, the minor tasks forced upon you (or invented, in the case of the entrepreneur) will swell to consume time until another bit of minutiae jumps in to replace it, leaving you at the end of the day with nothing accomplished. How else could dropping off a package at UPS, setting a few appointments, and checking e-mail consume an entire 9-5 day?” ²

How to Beat Parkinson’s Law

There a few things we can do to combat Parkinson’s Law, such as:

(1)  Be laser-focused on how you spend your time

Ferriss provides some thought-provoking questions that can help us do that:

  “If you had a heart attack and had to work two hours per day, what would you do?

  “If you had a second heart attack and had to work two hours per week, what would you do?

  “If you had a gun to your head and had to stop doing 4/5 of different time-consuming activities, what would you remove?”

  “What are the top three activities that I use to fill time to feel as though I have been productive?”

  “If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?” ²

(2)  Utilize the Pareto principle aka 80-20 rule

The Pareto principle helps you figure out which of the 20% of your actions are responsible for 80% of your outcomes – then you focus on those actions.

(3)  Set aggressive and tight deadlines

Most times we underestimate how long something takes. So, the idea is to set aggressive, yet realistic, deadlines to finish our work. This will help us eliminate unnecessary time wasters and focus on what’s really important. Seeing as how time is of the essence, everything you are working on must be of value. As Ferriss advises, “limit the number of items on your to-do list and use impossibly short deadlines to force immediate action while ignoring minutiae.” ² And as you get more efficient with your time you will also get better with estimating how long certain tasks take.

An interesting question that billionaire Peter Thiel asks of himself is “If you have a 10-year plan of how to get [somewhere] you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months?” ³

By reducing the time that you have available you will force yourself to focus on what is most important and thus get straight to the point.

(4)  Use rewards

For those who need a little extrinsic motivation, you can experiment with giving yourself a reward for completing a task such as some social media time, a cup of coffee or a smoothie or whatever you think will help motivate you.

(5)  Take advantage of batching

Grouping similar tasks or ‘batching’, is much more efficient than jumping from task to task also known as task-switching or multi-tasking.

(6)  Don’t let great get in the way of good enough

This is one I am personally guilty of, although I am getting better! Quit when you are done and don’t be a perfectionist if it is only adding marginal or no value to the end result.

(7)  Use the Pomodoro Technique to do focused work

Which alternates 25-minute work sessions with 5-minute rest periods to supercharge your productivity and increase the amount of focused work you get done.

(8)  Know What Task is Next on Your List

And be ready to jump on it so you don’t waste time trying to figure out what to do next!

Well, There You Have It…

A blog post written on Parkinson’s law in exactly 3 hours. For me, I primarily used #3 – set aggressive and tight deadlines, and #7 – the Pomodoro technique to leverage Parkinson’s law to write this post faster

Now, that this blog post is done, I will take my own advice and…

Jump to the Next Task on My List

Which is doing my goal setting for 2019!

I’ve had all week to do it, and wouldn’t you know it, nothing yet.

At least now I can use Parkinson’s Law to help me since today is the last day until 2019!

Until next time, keep using Parkinson’s Law to your advantage, Happy New Year, and as always…PYMFP!

–Rick

Use It or Lose It – Beating Parkinson’s Law

To beat Parkinson’s Law, utilize these 7 strategies:

(1)  Be laser-focused on how you use your time.
(2)  Utilize the Pareto principle aka 80-20 rule.
(3)  Set aggressive and tight deadlines.
(4)  Use rewards.
(5)  Take advantage of batching.
(6)  Don’t let great get in the way of good enough.
(7)  Use the Pomodoro technique to do focused work

When to Use It:

When you are affected by Parkinson’s Law.

What Do You Think?

Does Parkinson’s Law affect you? Do you find that your work expands with the time you have to complete it? Does it affect some areas of your life more than others? How can you use your newfound understanding of Parkinson’s Law to increase your efficiency? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

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References

1 Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress (London, John Murray, 1958) http://sas2.elte.hu/tg/ptorv/Parkinson-s-Law.pdf

2 Ferriss, Timothy., Ray Porter, and OverDrive Inc. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. Expanded & updated ; unabridged. Ashland, Or.: Blackstone Audio, 2009.

3 Ferriss, T. (2017). Tools of Titans: The tactics, routines, and habits of billionaires, icons, and world-class performers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.