Parkinson's law and how to hack it

I've already mentioned this law in one of my previous posts.

"The work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Thus, an elderly lady of leisure can spend the entire day in writing and despatching a postcard to her niece at Bognor Regis. An hour will be spent in finding the postcard, another in hunting for spectacles, half-an-hour in a search for the address, an hour and a quarter in composition, and twenty minutes in deciding whether or not to take an umbrella when going to the pillar-box in the next street. The total effort which would occupy a busy man for three minutes all told may in this fashion leave another person prostrate after a day of doubt, anxiety and toil."

It's an excerpt from the original essay of Cyril Parkinson written in 1955 where he described this law for the first time. The main goal of this essay is to show the natural tendency for officials to make more work for each other. He even gives us convincing proof from the history of the British Admiralty from 1914 to 1928. While the number of ships and marines decreased by 67.7% and 31.5% respectively, the number of Admiralty officials increased by 78.5% over a period of fourteen years!!!

This is all very interesting and the full essay is totally worth reading, but the main goal of my post is to make you more efficient. And that's why I've taken the first paragraph of Parkinson's work with a story about an old lady. How often do we find ourselves in a similar situation, when we have so much more to get done? I do more often than wanted.

I can't say that the woman has made something terribly wrong. If she had no other things to do during the day, then why not? I even want to compliment her on putting and meeting some kind of deadline (the end of the day).

- But it's not our case. So what can we do to use our time more efficiently?

- In short, set clear deadlines and meet them.

- Really? That's all?

- Almost. There is a catch. This strategy may not fit every task from your to-do list. Furthermore, in some cases, if you do it wrong, it can even lead to bad consequences.

- Will you tell us about everything?

- I'll do my best in one of the next posts. For now, you can read a short interesting study on self-imposed deadlines from MIT uni. It answers 3 important questions:
1. Do people self-impose costly deadlines in tasks where procrastination may impede performance?
2. Are self-imposed deadlines effective in improving task performance?
3. Do people set their deadlines optimally, for maximum performance enhancement?

#efficiency #habits