Parkinson’s Law

What is Parkinson's Law? I know what you're thinking, and the answer is no, Parkinson's law is not related to Parkinson's disease. That's the first thing I thought of too..but maybe it's just the medical nerd in me? Anyway, Parkinson's Law was discovered by a man, with the incredibly epic name, of Cyril Northcoate Parkinson. Mr Parkinson first observed a phenomenon during his time with the British civil services, which was as bureaucracies expanded they became increasingly inefficient. He then observed this trend in other areas of life noting that as the size of something increased its overall efficiency decreased (arrows). This led to the creation of his now famous law.

What Is Parkinson’s Law?

Parkinson's law states that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Put another way, the amount of work required to do a specific task will adjust to the time available for its completion.

For example, if you're trying to complete a paper and you give yourself 30 min to write 1 page of a paper it'll take you that amount of time. If you give yourself 2 hours to write that same 1 page of a paper, you'll most likely still only get a page done. The reason is in the 30 min time frame, you will channel all of your mental fortitude and hyper-focus abilities to write that page in 30 min, and in fact it'll most likely be just as good if not better than what you would have done in 2 hours because during the longer time frame your brain is much more prone to distractions. By creating a shorter deadline it forces you to undergo a higher intensity of focus and persistence, which actually increases the overall quality of the task at hand.

Another example, if you’re a musician and want to learn a piece of music in 3 months vs. learning it in 1 month…If you create the 1 month deadline, you'll force yourself to practice a bit longer each day on that specific piece of music to get it done in 1 month instead of 3

Why Does This Work?

Shifts the stress from distress to eustress, which is the type of stress that actually motivates and produces some of your best stuff by invigorating your brain. This only works if perceived importance of the task at hand is really high - if you don't care, then it won't work for you.

Parkinson's Law is basically the thing a procrastinator LOVES to hear and this is why procrastination works… sometimes. I say sometimes with a high degree of emphasis because if something comes up at the last minute, which things often do, you're in some serious trouble. AND procrastination is not a healthy lifestyle because you add in much more distress than eustress which is bad for your health in the long run.

How Can You Use Parkinson's Law To Your Advantage?

Parkinson's Law is most obvious when you have big projects with longer deadlines like 3-6 months. What you can do to use this law to your advantage is to break down the big project into tangible, bite size components that you can achieve and create deadlines of 1-2 weeks for each task. This will not only allow you to complete the task more efficiently, but also in a timely manner (not leaving it all to the last minute). Creating timely deadlines to get your work done allows yourself to be challenged, which will not only increase resilience down the road, but also sharpen your mind's ability to focus on one task at a time, which can help immensely in other areas of your life.