Parkinson’s Law for Better Time Management
Understand the simplicity of Parkinson’s Law with a Self-Paced learner.
Have you ever noticed how tasks often expand to fill the time available for their completion? Imagine this: you have a week to finish a project, and somehow, it magically takes you the entire week to complete it. Now, what if I told you there’s a simple principle that can help you break free from this cycle and supercharge your productivity? Enter Parkinson’s Law.
Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. In other words, the more time you allocate to a task, the longer it will take to finish. But here’s the kicker: by understanding and applying this law, you can learn to work smarter, not harder, and accomplish more in less time.
As someone on the journey of learning, I’m excited to share my learning about the significance of Parkinson’s Law and how it can be beneficial for us. Together, let’s dive into this learning experience!
How this Law works?
Imagine you have a simple task, like organizing your trello board, which realistically only takes about two hours to complete. But, you decide to give yourself a whole week to do it. What happens next? Suddenly, that two-hours job seems to morph into a massive undertaking, with unnecessary complications and added time-consuming steps. By the end of the week, what could have been a quick task has turned into a drawn-out process, consuming more of your time and energy than necessary. This is the essence of Parkinson’s Law in action.
The fundamental idea behind Parkinson’s Law is that tasks often become more complex when given more time for completion.
Parkinson’s Law can make you put off tasks until the last minute. You might feel like you have lots of time for a project, but then end up waiting until it’s almost due before getting started. This means that, tasks become even more daunting, requiring much more mental energy. This means that they frequently become a source of stress and anxiety.
When you finally finish the task, you might feel relieved. But then you might wonder why it felt like such a big deal in your head when it wasn’t that hard in reality.
The extra time it takes to do the task isn’t because the task is harder — it’s because you spent time worrying about it.
Why this is happening?
Some experts think, Parkinson’s Law can also work in therapy. They say that if therapy has a set end date, people might find more things to talk about just to fill up the time, even if they could have finished faster.
One reason this happens is because of how we think about tasks. Studies show that when we start a new project, we often think about how much time we have to finish it, instead of how long the task actually takes. So, we end up making the task seem like it will take longer than it really does. When we focus on how much time we have, we expect the task to fill up all that time.
Simple Tips to Beat Parkinson’s Law
Parkinson’s Law isn’t like a magic spell or a strict rule. It’s just something we notice that can help us get more done. Here are some tips to help you be more productive without getting caught up in Parkinson’s Law.
- Planning your time: If you plan your time carefully and set deadlines for yourself, you can avoid falling into the procrastination trap.
- Set the goals: Whatever your goal happens to be, write it down. Track your progress and noting the progress you’ve made, what still needs to be done all over the course of the project.
- Understand the task and estimate realistic: When you have a clear understanding of how long a task should take, you can avoid the tendency to expand the work to fill the time you have available.
- Prioritization: Identify which tasks are most important, you can ensure that you focus on them first and not get bogged down by less important tasks.
- Break the task and make sub-tasks: Break larger tasks into smaller sub-tasks and give yourself self-imposed deadlines. This strategy can help you work more effectively and may reduce the impact of Parkinson’s law by speeding up your progress.
