Parkinson’s Law dictates that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” This means that however much time is available for a task is how long it will take to complete.
Every year, there is a cycle of work that must be done. Maybe it is a research cycle, writing a scientific paper, developing a conservation plan for a farmer, or putting together implementation contracts. In order to meet the mission of the job, we must complete tasks to get from point A to point B. Because it is cyclical, it often feels like there is never enough time to complete the job at hand.
The go-to answer of most individuals is to complain that there isn’t enough time and frequently ask for extensions on deadlines. But more time is rarely the answer.
When you break tasks down to their core, they often take a lot less time than you first believe. Maybe you are creating a specification to provide a customer to guide their implementation of a practice. It is a task that might feel like it will take days to complete. But when you divide it into pieces, you realize that collecting the inventory data might only take a day between drive time and data collection. Analyzing it might only take a couple of hours and filling out the job templates takes another hour. When broken down, the task may only take a day and a half versus the multiple days that you were telling yourself it would take.
Back to Parkinson’s Law, however, if you give yourself 4 days to complete the same task, you will take four days. Think about deadlines. Why does it seem to happen you are always pushing against deadlines?
Remember, the purpose of a deadline is to create an ending point so you can move on to the next task. Without a deadline, there is no ending point. Without that endpoint, the work continues because there is no incentive to complete it. This is not because you are a procrastinator, but because if you have more time, you use that time. It is natural human behavior.
How then do you take advantage of this principle to reduce your stress, keep focused, and ultimately accomplish your goals?
- Evaluate the larger deadline and identify steps needed to complete the overall goal.
- Break the work down into smaller bite sized efforts.
- Set mini-deadlines along the way to tackle those smaller goals.
- Hold Yourself accountable to those deadlines.
- Celebrate the little wins along the way.
The natural tendency to fill the space available can be a burden when we do not use it to our advantage. When you learn to use it as a tool, however, you find that rather than creating stress, deadlines serve you. Each mini-deadline brings you closer to the goal and gives you small wins along the way. Every time you meet a mini-deadline, it is an accomplishment you can celebrate.
And through that celebration, you will enjoy the journey as well as the destination.
