I wanted to publish content on my blog site since a while. When I say a while, it means over 5 years! But I just never did it. That is until this very moment as I draft my first article. This is what led to me to find the influence of Parkinson’s Law in our day-to-day life and the decisions we take.
It wasn’t that my skills were lacking. Nor the will had diminished. But under the guise of doing other important work I just never did it. So what is it changed now?
The only thing that made a difference in my observation is that I finally set myself a deadline.
From thinking ‘Let’s wrap up this client work first’, ‘Its better to research in detail’, ‘If not today, I can always to do it later. But let’s do it right‘ ,
to “I need to publish this by Sunday” is what helped me get it done.
This right here is the perfect example of – Parkinson’ s Law in action.
What is Parkinson’s Law?
Parkinson’s Law is an observation shared by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in a humorous essay he wrote for “The Economist” in 1955. He said-
It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Work expands to fill the time allotted to it!
Parkinson explains with an example-
A person at leisure can spend an entire day writing a letter to their friend. They might spend hours looking for the best paper, the best pen, the best ideas and quotes, getting in the right mood, getting distracted midway on the phone and so on.
Finally accomplishing it after a day of doubt, anxiety and toil.
The same task might take a busy person 5-10 minutes to accomplish. Simply because that’s all the time he had for it.
The work seemingly expands to make up for the time allotted to it.
If you give it a week it will take a week. If you give it an year, it will take an year.
And if you don’t give it a deadline (as in my case), chances are it is never going to get done.
This is why understanding of Parkinson’s Law can have deeper, transformative impact in the way you manage your time.
Parkinson’s Law helps you gain the ability to get things done.
All of us like to live in this illusion that we have an unending amount of time. We often do not prioritize stuff until it become a big fire that cannot be ignored.
Say for example you had 6 days to submit an assignment. While you might put in some work every day, but a major chunk of the work is only done in the final few hours.
You must have had this experience during your college exams. The sheer focus and productivity the human mind can show the night before the exam is unmatched.
It is only when the fire gets big enough that the task becomes important enough for us to act on it.This is especially true when it concerns your personal goals. Your work often has deadlines and you are answerable to someone, but your own personal goals don’t enjoy that luxury and get left on a backburner for years to come.
What are the factors that influence this behaviour?
In my experience I found the following factors that have a major influence-
1. You keep looking for perfection-
When you have ample time, you don’t start right away. You keep looking for perfection, until you realize you haven’t got much time left and then you get into action.
In my case, I scooped for numerous ideas, built up my skillset – learned to build by own website, learned marketing & SEO, all the preparations to make it big. Executed several client projects. Etc..
Basically, everything except writing and creating my own content.
2. You don’t find it urgent enough
You procrastinate using other tasks and activities as an excuse. In my case, I knew getting started was important. But client work, digital distractions and need for perfection served themselves up as legitimate excuses to not take any real action.
You know you need to douse the fire soon. Its just that it doesn’t get your attention unless it gets big enough to burn down the house.3. The illusion of time
The reason the Parkinson’s Law works is the illusion of time. The task can be done within an hour, but if allocated a week, it tends to take a week.
This is because, our mind is tuned to think we have infinite amount of time. The illusion of time plays an crucial role in diluting the urgency of the matter. And thus if not given a deadline days turn into weeks, weeks into months, even years.
Until the realization hits you someday. And unless you act again on that realization, the cycle goes on.
What can you do?
Here are a few things that you can do-
1. Start with setting a achievable but definitive deadline-
As per Parkinson’s Law work will expand to fill the time allotted to it. If you don’t set a deadline, the work tends to expand until you fix a time allocated to it.
Without a nearing deadline your brain doesn’t register the urgency to act. That last night flourish for the exam occurs because the deadline is next day and the stakes are high. A deadline swings our brain and mind to action.Sometimes you might overshoot the deadline, but its okay. You will still be getting things done way faster than without a deadline.
2. Break the task into smaller bits and set a timeline for each of those-
Often the goal we have in mind is too big and vague. It makes it hard for you to measure whether you have made any real progress. It always helps to break it into smaller well-defined bits and then accomplish those bits in a timely to ensure progress.
3. Raise the Stakes
Setting deadlines won’t mean a thing unless the stakes are high. The mind gets used to discarding any timelines you set, unless the stakes are high enough for you to feel the burn.
Exams, project deadlines, public presentations have high stakes involved. But that often might not be the case for personal goals. We tend to be lenient on ourselves, and thus personal goals often take a backseat.
So find out ways to raise the stakes on things that matter to you.Experiment with tighter but realistic deadlines
Once you get into a habit of getting things done. Especially the stuff, which you have put on backburner for ages. Start experimenting with setting tighter deadlines. You will see that tight deadlines often bring out your latent skills, talents and potential to the fore. Thus, you end up accomplishing much more than in case you would otherwise.
Many people who just learn about the Parkinson’s Law make a very common mistake. The mistake of setting unrealistic deadlines. Ensure that your deadlines aren’t so unrealistic that you end up giving up on them.
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And Finally,
Use Parkinson’s Law to get stuff DONE!
Learn to Get things Done, rather than Just Plan
This is a personal learning I would take away from this. You won’t realize what you can accomplish unless you do it.
While planning is good, doing it is even better.And that my friends is how you can use Parkinson’s Law to your favour and multiply your productivity. Especially on things that matter to you.
Parkinson’s Law also shows the most impact in big corporate set-ups. But that’s something for some other time.
Drop some comments if you find this helpful.
See you in the next article. Cheers!
