Parkinson's Law: Why We Love To Waste Our Time
It’s not like our mind doesn’t like doing hard work, it just doesn’t like the idea of it.
As a student, I’ve been guilty of filling my time with uselessness. Let’s say I was given 1 day to shoot a small scene. Evidently, since the deadline requires me to spend 24 hours to shoot it, I will utilize the entire 24 hours. This is known as Parkinson’s Law.
However, If I had a small dawat (dinner party) scheduled for the evening, I’d make sure to wrap up the shoot in 5 hours. And the funny thing is, there wouldn’t be that much of a difference in quality. Now I can spend the next 19 hours perfecting my edit or completing my other projects.
Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time allotted for completion. Let’s say you have a project with a deadline in a month. Arguably, the project can be done in a matter of 2 weeks, however, we naturally tend to fill in the gaps.
First coined by British historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson in a 1955 essay for The Economist, the law tells the story of a woman whose only task is to send a postcard. With the entire day to complete the task, she spends hours finding the card, her glasses, writing the card, and so on until the day is filled.
It’s more apparent in the freelance space and workplace as well. Most of the time its unintentional things that delay the task even more: the project manager got sick, your group members are on holiday, or the client wasn’t clear in the initial brief, so you waste more time scheduling another meeting just to find out even they don’t have the clarity, etc. On top of all these aspects that require an equal amount of attention, doing the actual work now just sounds like a burden: mentally and physically. So what does one do? Hand it off to the low-paid intern? Or another option: lower the stakes (Also called Minimum Viable Product) on the quickest self-imposed deadline so that you have SOMETHING to show and build on top of the feedback. That way your walk becomes a jog and then you RUN!
We tend to fill the extra time with meaningless tasks which aren’t necessary but we convince ourselves that it’s the “art of the creative process.” If instead, you impose your own strict short deadline, you will see that you are a lot faster at getting shit done with the same quality (however it depends on the project).
One way I use to allocate self-imposed deadlines is using Time Blocks on my Google Calendar - that way, I get a notification about the task i.e. when it starts and how much time I have to finish it - and then I put it on a timer and just work on it within that time slot.
Another time-efficient way is to apply the 5 Minute Rule, which I learned from Matt D’Avella, that focuses on getting started on those tasks which you’ve been avoiding. He states:
“…Instead of sitting down to do something that gives you the squirmies…promise your brain that you’re only gonna work on a very small but specific part of a task for 5 minutes. Just 5 minutes…it’s so painless, it’s hard NOT to do.”
And once the 5 minutes is over, you can move on to another task. Jordan Peterson also reiterates that you have to keep negotiating with yourself about completing your responsibilities. You can work for 5 minutes and then go defeat a boss in Dark Souls - whatever floats your goat.
Now I want to stress that this only works for certain tasks - many creatives have a process and this in no way is a protest to that. I’m referring to tasks that are particularly amenable to self-imposed deadlines (e.g. administrative tasks, research, etc.) versus those that require more spontaneousness and flexibility.
While Parkinson's example may seem extreme, we've all experienced this phenomenon at some point. By understanding this concept, and applying it to our work life, we can become more productive and efficient. Parkinson's Law is not a scientific principle, but rather an observation of a common phenomenon that can apply to one’s productivity as well as culture-building.
If you want to learn more about Parkinson’s Law, here’s the link to the original article: Parkinson’s Law | The Economist
