All of us have that *one task* in our to-do lists each day that we simply just don’t want to do.
If there’s no set deadline on this task, or you’re given a pretty relaxed turnaround (such as a two-week time frame to get the task complete), you’ll probably feel relief at first.
“Two weeks is more than enough time,” you think to yourself. “I’ll start it tomorrow.”
However, this distant deadline means you’re likely to take longer than necessary to tick off this particular task, pushing it back further into the depths of your schedule until suddenly, you release the deadline is tomorrow.
Sound familiar? Well, this phenomenon is so common that it has a name – enter Parkinson’s Law.
The history of Parkinson’s Law
This term was coined by Cyril Northcote Parkinson, a naval historian who first wrote about this psychological occurrence in a satirical essay. Realising the subject contained depth, he went on to write a book about it, called Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress.
In the book, he uses the example of a woman whose only task for the day is to send a postcard. Because that task is the only thing on her agenda, Parkinson explains how she manages to fill her whole day with the completion of that task – such as spending an hour finding her glasses, an hour and a half writing the card, and so on.
While this example may be extreme, it’s a useful allegory for the ideology Parkinson is trying to demonstrate with his Law – that any given task will expand to fill the time you give it.
How does this affect me?
While perhaps not quite to the extent of the woman in Parkinson’s tale, we can probably all think of an example where we’ve perhaps allocated a task longer than is necessary, yet found it has taken that exact amount of time to complete it.
Studies suggest that when we’re given a task, we weigh up how much free time we have to complete that task, rather than how much time we actually need for it.
Say, for example, you’re given a blog post to write – you may only need half an hour to research and write it, but if you have an hour to spare that particular afternoon, you may find yourself allocating that whole hour to the task.
This results in an inefficient use of time, and is something we’re all guilty of.
How do I overcome it?
Luckily, there are strategies at hand to make sure you’re not losing too much of your day and only giving tasks the time they really need.
Come up with a plan
Developing a strategic work plan can help you combat Parkinson’s Law. Create a detailed list of the tasks you need to complete, and how long each one will actually take – not just how much free time you have to give them.
Set yourself deadlines
Even if the task at hand has a relaxed deadline, there may be some projects that you’d rather just get done. If this is the case, then setting yourself achievable completion targets can be helpful. If it’s a particularly big task, try setting yourself small, manageable goals (such as setting aside as hour a day) to break the project down bit by bit.
Time boxing or blocking
If you have a variety of tasks to get done throughout the day, try grouping them together into similar categories and doing them in allocated chunks of time. “Context switching” is the process of switching between tasks or projects that are completely different in nature, which can actually harm your productivity as you bounce between one and the other. Your brain needs time to adjust and refocus, so cut the multi-tasking, and just focus instead on one task, or group of related tasks, with clear time expectations for each.
Here at Engage Web, we want our clients to make the most of their free time by taking care of the hard bits – like building them their own website. If you’re interested in how we could save you time, get in touch with our team today.
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