In this episode, I am going to show you how a little known observation by a man named Cyril Parkinson, in the 1950s, can help you get more done in less time.

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We are going to be thinking about Parkinson’s law and how it affects your ability to manage your time and productivity. In the 1950s, there was a British civil servant named Cyril Northcott Parkinson. He was commissioned to study civil service and figure out why so many projects within the government departments were blowing out in time. They were taking much longer than they were meant to and wasting a lot of money, a lot of productivity and many man-hours. 

Parkinson observed a whole range of government departments over a period of time and after his observations, his conclusions were that with any of the projects that they were asked to do, the success of the completion of the project was determined by the time constraints that were put on it. Basically he said that the productivity expanded or contracted depending on the time limits. If there was a short time frame put onto the project then everybody worked at a much higher rate of productivity. If there was a longer time frame or there was no specific  time frame for the completion of the project, workers would delay the project and take longer to finish it. Very often, they did not complete the task until a specific time limit was put on it. This became known as Parkinson’s Law. Simplified, Parkinson’s law says, work expands or contracts to fit the time constraints that are put on it.

So how does this affect you in your productivity? You’ve probably noticed that there are certain things that you work on that never seem to end. You work back late and keep working until you are too tired to work any longer. Maybe you’re having trouble balancing your work and your life commitments. Maybe you spend too much time at work or maybe, you’re bringing your work home because you don’t get it completed during the day. Then you find yourself working at night. I know this is true of teachers. When I was a school teacher, this was a problem. 

This might be a problem for business owners as well. The work never seems to end. This can affect your relationships, your health and well-being and also increase your stress levels. So, I want to show you how to apply Parkinson’s law to your work balance and help you to become more productive and have more time for yourself and your family.

1. Put a time limit on your work.

We’re going to use Parkinson’s law as a bit of a guide, so the first thing you need to do whenever you’re working on any kind of project is this, you must put a time limit on it. If you went to university or you remember your high school days, very often when you had assignments you may have  noticed that students  tended to leave their work or their assignment till the very last minute thereby shortening their time limit. Why? Because they knew that this shortened time limit made them more productive. 

When people have a sense of urgency and know the deadline is coming, that’s when they tend to be more focused, work harder and faster. This is your brain’s way of prioritizing workload and prioritizing focus. You see, your brain understands that you have multiple tasks that you have to balance. So in order to help you balance your workload, your brain gives more priority to things that are urgent, because with urgency, comes deadlines, with deadlines comes consequences.  This is your brain’s way of saying, “Come on, get on with it, there’s a time constraint here, you need to make this a priority.” By putting a time limit on your projects, what will happen is that you will be less distracted, work faster and more efficiently so you don’t go over time. So, you need to use time limits to manage your personal work –  life balance.  Put a time limit on your work day. You need to say, “At five o’clock I clock off and I do not work past five o’clock or if you’re bringing work home, say, “At eight o’clock I finish work. I have some down time or I have family time.” Whatever it might be, if you don’t put a hard deadline on your workload and your projects, you will just keep on working and will go on and on and you’ll get exhausted and stressed. You will  miss out on the important things in your life and you will become less productive over time. So more work doesn’t equal more productivity. Putting time constraints on your workload and your projects, will actually make you more productive and more efficient. 

2. Have accountability

The second thing that you need to do if you are going to use Parkinson’s law to help you get more done in less time is this; you need accountability. You need people in your life that are going to help you stay true to those time limits, those hard barriers or boundaries that you have on your workload. It might be a family member that is able to call you and say, “Hey it’s past cut off time, you need to stop working and you need to go home”. If you have a life coach, a business coach or a friend then they might be able to keep you accountable in that regard. You can also use your phone as a productivity tool. Have a timer or an alarm that will help to jog your memory to help with your accountability as well. So make sure you’ve got somebody or something that holds you to your time limits. Don’t let your time limits be abstract or obtuse because then your brain will know that you’re just making up the time limit and it won’t stick to it. So make yourself  accountable in some form so that you know the deadline is serious. 

3. Prioritize the workload

Thirdly, you need to understand how to prioritize workload and tasks according to your needs and the needs of others. If you work with other people in a team, what you will often find is that everybody else’s needs are more important than yours. Everybody will place their own sense of importance on the tasks that they give you. 

I used to get this a lot when I was working in the education system. I worked in a particular role where other people relied on me to get information to them. Very often people would send me an email that would say, “Hey can you get this done, I need it urgently.” So what I found before I started using Parkinson’s law, was that because they said, “Urgently,” I dropped everything else that I was doing to prioritise that request. I focused on other people’s sense of urgency rather than the work that I needed to get done. Then I would be behind on my workload and be stressed because I wasn’t getting my work done.

What I learned to do was force other people to put time limits on their emergencies or their sense of urgency as well. Most people don’t work like this; they just want you to drop everything and do their work immediately.

So this is how I handle the priorities of other people. Now, when somebody says to me, “Can you get this done for me”?, the first question I ask is “By when do you need it done”? Usually they will respond,  “As soon as possible.”  That’s not good enough. What I then say is “I understand that you have a sense of urgency about this but I need to know what the latest date and time is that I need to get this done for you as I have a number of priorities that I have to balance.”  When you force them to put a time limit on it, one, it helps you to manage your time but secondly, you’ll often find that it’s not as urgent as they made it out to be. A great example of this is; I once had a teacher that sent me an email. She said “Tarun, I need this stuff urgently” So I said to her “Ok, when do you need it”? She said, “As soon as possible”. I followed up again and I said, “Give me the latest practical time to get this done, where it won’t put you under stress”. She came back to me and said that the deadline was four weeks away! So what started out as something urgent, actually turned out to be something that wasn’t required for a whole month! That completely changed the way I prioritize my workload. Instead of dropping everything and doing it there and then, I was able to say, “No problem,  I’ll make sure that I have it to you in the next two weeks”. So they knew when they were going to get it, they weren’t harassing me and stressing about it. I knew what time I had to get it done and I didn’t have to drop other important tasks for the sake of it.

By prioritizing your workload and others and by putting time constraints on them, you will find that you get more done in an efficient manner. You won’t find yourself burning out, working long hours or burning the candle at both ends. You’ll find you are more productive, focused, happier and less stressed at work and in your family. 

Those are  my three tips for using Parkinson’s law to help you get more done in less time.

• Put time limits on everything you do.
• Have accountability. 
• Put time limits on other people’s workload as well.

 If you do this, you will find that you work more efficiently and avoid unnecessary stress. 

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