A practical application of Parkinson's Law is to improve your time management in order to do double the amount of things in half the time.

Each subject has got its laws: there are the laws of thermodynamics, Kepler's law... and Murphy's Law ! ;-)

The world of efficiency and productivity has its own commandments too.

In this article I will talk about one of these commandments, and how you can exploit it in order to do double the amount of things in half the time.

The Parkinson's Law

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

Cyril N. Parkinson

Another way to say that is:

"The more time you have for completing a task, the more time you will waste."

Probably those principles do not sound entirely new, right? :-)

Don't you remember? The time at university, when you found out you had an extra week to prepare for an exam but you left your studying until midnight the day before anyway.

Do you remember that bill? You knew its due date 2 months in advance, but you almost risked the late-payment penalty fee by leaving it till the last minute.

Not to mention that project at work - the deadline got pushed back, but you ended up in a worse state than before!

If it is true that the more time we have, the more we waste, the opposite is also true: when time is short, we tend to work on priorities and be more efficient.

Less time = more motivation

A stringent deadline forces us to focus on what we have to deliver - the risk of failing to complete the work and the possible negative consequences motivate us.

Think in terms of "carrot and stick" - the scarcity of time is definitely the "stick", and therefore not very pleasant, but the point is that...it works. If you're a hopeless procrastinator, you know that a looming deadline is, sometimes, the only incentive that pushes you to act.

So let's see how we can use the Parkinson's Law to do more stuff with less time.

Practical application

While I was wondering what could be the most effective practical example to show you the results when turning Parkinson's Law to your advantage, I realized that I was applying it without realizing.

The countdown on my Android phone marks now 5 minutes and 22 seconds. It was set on 30 minutes before starting to write this article.

When you have to complete a task, try and implement these steps:

estimate how long it may take you to complete the task

divide that time by 2

set up a timer where you can easily see it

off you go!

Having a challenging deadline for completing a task gives you the impetus to act immediately and allows you to focus on your goal without getting lost in distractions (nowadays there are so many distraction on the Internet!).

A tip: be careful not to over do it! Impossible deadlines are likely to be counter-productive. If you decide to write the Divine Comedy in 3 minutes, you will only get not being able to meet your deadline as a result - you will be more demotivated than before, will set another impossible deadline and fall into a vicious circle that will make you lose time and motivation. Keep your deadlines challenging but realistic.

Do you use similar tricks to apply the Parkinson's Law to your advantage? Please, share them with us!