I came across the principle of Parkinson’s Law last week. I read about it on a post called ‘Parkinson’s Law: Why You Keep Procrastinating that Task’ on the self-improvement blog Gen-i.
“Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”
Not having enough time is really, a myth. The fact is we are over-generous with the time we allocate to a task, so the task takes longer than it needs to. This is how we fail to succeed at time-management, but Parkinson’s Law helps us understand that our time is almost completely in our control.
It’s not about having little time but moulding our time around the things that need to be done.
Before coming across the article, whenever I’d give myself 2 hours to complete an assignment, that assignment would take 2 hours. However, when I decided to do other subject revision on a similar day and only an hour to finish the assignment, I’d surprisingly get the work done at a faster rate.
By being a little strict on the time I allowed myself to have but making sure it was a reasonable amount where I would work to my best ability, I was able to execute the task more efficiently without the usual tonnes of procrastination. The great thing is that as well as spending less time on a task, you also get around to doing other things that you may have not expected to do throughout the day.
Since then, I’ve started reminding myself of the principle whenever I’m about to fall into the pool of procrastination.
No Comments
Leave a comment Cancel