How ‘Parkinson’s Law’ Is Making You Unproductive, and What to Do About It

One of the best ways to optimize your productivity and output is to plan in advance what you need to do, what you can do with a brain dumpone mercilessly organized daily scheduleA collection of planning toolsor any other number of methods. Unfortunately, even the best practices have a dark side if you push them too far.

In this case, that dark side is Parkinson’s Law, an observation that suggests that the more time you dedicate to doing something, the longer it will take you to do it. The truth is that you can plan, plan, and plan your way until you accomplish nothing. It’s always best to finish difficult things as soon as possible. So let’s look at the pitfalls of Parkinson’s Law and how you can overcome them.

What is Parkinson’s Law?

The origins of the axiom are a bit delicious: Cyril Northcote Parkinson described the phenomenon in a humorous 1955 essay in The economistand this has since been attributed to him. You can read the entire essay, but its main point is: “The work expands so as to occupy the time available for its completion. »

Although it had a fun start, the idea grew until it was studied more seriously. Researchers have published their findings on Parkinson’s Law in the Bulletin and psychonomic review in 1999, finding that people tend to consider how long available to complete a task rather than considering how little time it might actually take. Basically, we give our future self a little too much wiggle room when planning our schedule, and then our future self graciously accepts all that extra time that could be spent on something else. After all, our past, wise as it may be, has reserved this time for a single task, and who are we to argue with that?

You can probably find examples of this in your own life. If your boss gives you an easy task but sets a deadline for the following week, are you likely to complete the work immediately? Parkinson’s Law gets to me more often than I’d like to admit, especially when I’m getting ready in the morning. When I gave myself an hour to get out of the house, I’d spend it wandering around, scrolling on my phone, or generally hanging out, so I started giving myself half an hour instead, with the added goal of grabbing coffee. Essentially, I started the “preparing” process at the same time each day, but with an earlier deadline and an additional task. I found that I always got where I needed to be on time, even after stopping for a treat.

Set shorter deadlines and stick to them

Consider the example of having one week to complete a simple task at work. Instead of setting a week as your goal date and letting the task overwhelm you, pick one day to get everything done – ideally, a day or two before the due date, so you have in mind whether you need to discuss or explain it afterwards. Set aside a block of time to do everything that needs to be done, but give yourself less time than you normally would. If you think distractions or other issues might arise during your work time, take steps (like indicating that you’re busy) to mitigate them instead of managing them with a time buffer.

This approach is useful because it encourages you to get things done sooner and without thinking too much. It also gives you some security: if you submit your work early and discover that there are problems, you’ve gained all the time to resolve those problems and resubmit while still meeting your original deadline. (This is why I always recommend setting two deadlines for any big project.)

Give yourself less time to complete tasks, not more

As you can see now, to overcome Parkinson’s Law, you need to give yourself less time to complete your tasks. Consider the Yerkes-Dodson lawwho says that to be the most productive you must have just the right amount stress – neither too little nor too much. When you have too much time to devote to something, you don’t have enough stress to motivate yourself.

To test this, spend a few weeks carving out time for different responsibilities. Use timeboxing to plan your entire day down to the minute, using blocks of time in your calendar. If you think it will take you 30 minutes to respond to all your emails in the morning, give yourself 20. If you think it will take you an hour to write reports for a big project, give yourself 45 minutes.

When you reduce this time and know that you only have limited space to complete a task, you will hopefully find yourself in a state of deep work, where you are totally focused on the task and can work through it systemically. This sense of urgency is essential.