Parkinson's Law | The Economist All latest updates Parkinson's Law The report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service was published on Thursday afternoon. Time has not permitted any comment in this week's issue of The Economist on the contents of the Report. But the startling discovery enunciated by a correspondent in the following article is certainly relevant to what should have been in it. Nov 19th 1955 Tweet IT is a commonplace observation that 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.

Granted that work (and especially paper work) is thus elastic in its demands on time, it is manifest that there need be little or no relationship between the work to be done and the size of the staff to which it may be assigned. Before the discovery of a new scientific law—herewith presented to the public for the first time, and to be called Parkinson's Law * —there has, however, been insufficient recognition of the implications of this fact in the field of public administration. Politicians and taxpayers have assumed (with occasional phases of doubt) that a rising total in the number of civil servants must reflect a growing volume of work to be done. Cynics, in questioning this belief, have imagined that the multiplication of officials must have left some of them idle or all of them able to work for shorter hours. But this is a matter in which faith and doubt seem equally misplaced. The fact is that the number of the officials and the quantity of the work to be done are not related to each other at all. The rise in the total of those employed is governed by Parkinson's Law, and would be much the same whether the volume of the work were to increase, diminish or even disappear.

The importance of Parkinson's Law lies in the fact that it is a law of growth based upon an analysis of the factors by which that growth is controlled. The validity of this recently discovered law must rest mainly on statistical proofs, which will follow. Of more interest to the general reader is the explanation of the factors that underlie the general tendency to which this law gives definition. Omitting technicalities (which are numerous) we may distinguish, at the outset, two motive forces. They can be represented for the present purpose by two almost axiomatic statements, thus: Related items Factor I.—An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals; and Factor II.—Officials make work for each other. We must now examine these motive forces in turn. The Law of Multiplication of Subordinates To comprehend Factor I, we must picture a civil servant called A who finds himself overworked. Whether this overwork is real or imaginary is immaterial; but we should observe, in passing, that A's sensation (or illusion) might easily result from his own decreasing energy—a normal symptom of middle-age. For this real or imagined overwork there are, broadly speaking, three possible remedies (1) He may resign.

(2) He may ask to halve the work with a colleague called B. (3) He may demand the assistance of two subordinates, to be called C and D. There is probably no instance in civil service history of A choosing any but the third alternative. By resignation he would lose his pension rights. By having B appointed, on his own level in the hierarchy, he would merely bring in a rival for promotion to W's vacancy when W (at long last) retires. So A would rather have C and D, junior men, below him. They will add to his consequence; and, by dividing the work into two categories, as between C and D, he will have the merit of being the only man who comprehends them both. It is essential to realise, at this point, that C and D are, as it were, inseparable. To appoint C alone would have been impossible. Why? Because C, if by himself, would divide the work with A and so assume almost the equal status which has been refused in the first instance to B; a status the more emphasised if C is A's only possible successor. Subordinates must thus number two or more, each being kept in order by fear of the other's promotion.

When C complains in turn of being overworked (as he certainly will) A will, with the concurrence of C, advise the appointment of two assistants to help C. But he can then avert internal friction only by advising the appointment of two more assistants to help D, whose position is much the same. With this recruitment of E, F, G and H, the promotion of A is now practically certain. The Law of Multiplication of Work Seven officials are now doing what one did before. This is where Factor II comes into operation. For these seven make so much work for each other that all are fully occupied and A is actually working harder than ever. An incoming document may well come before each of them in turn. Official E decides that it falls within the province of F, who places a draft reply before C, who amends it drastically before consulting D, who asks G to deal with it. But G goes on leave at this point, handing the file over to H, who drafts a minute, which is signed by D and returned to C, who revises his draft accordingly and lays the new version before A. What does A do? He would have every excuse for signing the thing unread, for he has many other matters on his mind.

Knowing now that he is to succeed W next year, he has to decide whether C or D should succeed to his own office. He had to agree to G going on leave, although not yet strictly entitled to it. He is worried whether H should not have gone instead, for reasons of health. He has looked pale recently—partly but not solely because of his domestic troubles. Then there is the business of F's special increment of salary for the period of the conference, and E's application for transfer to the Ministry of Pensions. A has heard that D is in love with a married typist and that G and F are no longer on speaking terms—no one seems to know why. So A might be tempted to sign C's draft and have done with it. But A is a conscientious man. Beset as he is with problems created by his colleagues for themselves and for him—created by the mere fact of these officials' existence—he is not the man to shirk his duty. He reads through the draft with care, deletes the fussy paragraphs added by C and H and restores the thing back to the form preferred in the first instance by the able (if quarrelsome) F.

He corrects the English—none of these young men can write grammatically—and finally produces the same reply he would have written if officials C to H had never been born. Far more people have taken far longer to produce the same result. No one has been idle. All have done their best. And it is late in the evening before A finally quits his office and begins the return journey to Ealing. The last of the office lights are being turned off in the gathering dusk which marks the end of another day's administrative toil. Among the last to leave, A reflects, with bowed shoulders and a wry smile, that late hours, like grey hairs, are among the penalties of success. The Scientific Proofs From this description of the factors at work the student of political science will recognise that administrators are more or less bound to multiply. Nothing has yet been said, however, about the period of time likely to elapse between the date of A's appointment and the date from which we can calculate the pensionable service of H. Vast masses of statistical evidence have been collected and it is from a study of this data that Parkinson's Law has been deduced. Space will not allow of detailed analysis, but research began in the British Navy Estimates.

These were chosen because the Admiralty's responsibilities are more easily measurable than those of (say) the Board of Trade. The accompanying table is derived from Admiralty statistics for 1914 and 1928. The criticism voiced at the time centred on the comparison between the sharp fall in numbers of those available for fighting and the sharp rise in those available only for administration, the creation, it was said, of “a magnificent Navy on land.” But that comparison is not to the present purpose. What we have to note is that the 2,000 Admiralty officials of 1914 had become the 3,569 of 1928; and that this growth was unrelated to any possible increase in their work. The Navy during that period had diminished, in point of fact, by a third in men and two-thirds in ships. Nor, from 1922 onwards, was its strength even expected to increase, for its total of ships (unlike its total of officials) was limited by the Washington Naval Agreement of that year.

Yet in these circumstances we had a 78.45 per cent increase in Admiralty officials over a period of fourteen years; an average increase of 5.6 per cent a year on the earlier total. In fact, as we shall see, the rate of increase was not as regular as that. All we have to consider, at this stage, is the percentage rise over a given period. Can this rise in the total number of civil servants be accounted for except on the assumption that such a total must always rise by a law governing its growth? It might be urged, at this point, that the period under discussion was one of rapid development in naval technique. The use of the flying machine was no longer confined to the eccentric. Submarines were tolerated if not approved. Engineer officers were beginning to be regarded as almost human. In so revolutionary an age we might expect that storekeepers would have more elaborate inventories to compile. We might not wonder to see more draughtsmen on the pay-roll, more designers, more technicians and scientists. But these, the dockyard officials, increased only by 40 per cent in number, while the men of Whitehall increased by nearly 80 per cent.

For every new foreman or electrical engineer at Portsmouth there had to be two more clerks at Charing Cross. From this we might be tempted to conclude, provisionally, that the rate of increase in administrative staff is likely to be double that of the technical staff at a time when the actually useful strength (in this case, of seamen) is being reduced by 31.5 per cent. It has been proved, however, statistically, that this last percentage is irrelevant. The officials would have multiplied at the same rate had there been no actual seamen at all. It would be interesting to follow the further progress by which the 8,118 Admiralty staff of 1935 came to number 33,788 by 1954. But the staff of the Colonial Office affords a better field of study during a period of Imperial decline. The relevant statistics are set down below. Before showing what the rate of increase is, we must observe that the extent of this department's responsibilities was far from constant during these twenty years. The colonial territories were not much altered in area or population between 1935 and 1939.

They were considerably diminished by 1943, certain areas being in enemy hands. They were increased again in 1947, but have since then shrunk steadily from year to year as successive colonies achieve self-government. It would be rational, prior to the discovery of Parkinson's Law, to suppose that these changes in the scope of Empire would be reflected in the size of its central administration. But a glance at the figures shows that the staff totals represent automatic stages in an inevitable increase. And this increase, while related to that observed in other departments, has nothing to do with the size—or even the existence—of the Empire. What are the percentages of increase? We must ignore, for this purpose, the rapid increase in staff which accompanied the diminution of responsibility during World War II. We should note rather the peacetime rates of increase; over 5.24 per cent between 1935 and 1939, and 6.55 per cent between 1947 and 1954.

This gives an average increase of 5.89 per cent each year, a percentage markedly similar to that already found in the Admiralty staff increase between 1914 and 1928. Further and detailed statistical analysis of departmental staffs would be inappropriate in such an article as this. It is hoped, however, to reach a tentative conclusion regarding the time likely to elapse between a given official's first appointment and the later appointment of his two or more assistants. Dealing with the problem of pure staff accumulation, all the researches so far completed point to an average increase of about 5¾ per cent per year. This fact established, it now becomes possible to state Parkinson's Law in mathematical form, thus: In any public administrative department not actually at war the staff increase may be expected to follow this formula: Where k is the number of staff seeking promotion through the appointment of subordinates; p represents the difference between the ages of appointment and retirement; m is the number of man-hours devoted to answering minutes within the department; and n is the number of effective units being administered. Then x will be the number of new staff required each year.

Mathematicians will, of course, realise that to find the percentage increase they must multiply x by 100 and divide by the total of the previous year, thus: where y represents the total original staff. And this figure will invariably prove to be between 5.17 per cent and 6.56 per cent, irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done. The discovery of this formula and of the general principles upon which it is based has, of course, no emotive value. No attempt has been made to inquire whether departments ought to grow in size. Those who hold that this growth is essential to gain full employment are fully entitled to their opinion. Those who doubt the stability of an economy based upon reading each other's minutes are equally entitled to theirs. Parkinson's Law is a purely scientific discovery, inapplicable except in theory to the politics of the day. It is not the business of the botanist to eradicate the weeds. Enough for him if he can tell us just how fast they grow. * Why? Why not?—Editor Parkinson’s Law, by Prof. Cyril Northcote Parkinson. Work Expands... Prof.

Cyril Northcote Parkinson ‘WORK EXPANDS SO AS TO FILL THE TIME AVAILABLE FOR ITS COMPLETION’ General recognition of this fact is shown in the proverbial phrase ‘It is the busiest man who has time to spare.’ Thus, an elderly lady of leisure can spend the entire day in writing and dispatching a postcard to her niece at Bognor Regis. An hour will be spent 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 that 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. Granted that work (and especially paperwork) is thus elastic in its demands on time, it is manifest that there need be little or no relationship between the work to be done and the size of the staff to which it may be assigned. A lack of real activity does not, of necessity, result in leisure. A lack of occupation is not necessarily revealed by a manifest idleness.

The thing to be done swells in importance and complexity in a direct ratio with the time to be spent. This fact is widely recognized, but less attention has been paid to its wider implications, more especially in the field of public administration. Politicians and taxpayers have assumed (with occasional phases of doubt) that a rising total in the number of civil servants must reflect a growing volume of work to be done. Cynics, in questioning this belief, have imagined that the multiplication of officials must have left some of them idle or all of them able to work for shorter hours. But this is a matter in which faith and doubt seem equally misplaced. The fact is that the number of the officials and the quantity of the work are not related to each other at all. The rise in the total of those employed is governed by Parkinson’s Law and would be much the same whether the volume of the work were to increase, diminish, or even disappear. The importance of Parkinson’s Law lies in the fact that it is a law of growth based upon an analysis of the factors by which that growth is controlled. The validity of this recently discovered law must rest mainly on statistical proofs, which will follow.

Of more interest to the general reader is the explanation of the factors underlying the general tendency to which this law gives definition. Omitting technicalities (which are numerous) we may distinguish at the outset two motive forces. They can be represented for the present purpose by two almost axiomatic statements, thus: (1) ‘An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals’ and (2) ‘Officials make work for each other.’ To comprehend Factor One, we must picture a civil servant, called A, who finds himself overworked. Whether this overwork is real or imaginary is immaterial, but we should observe, in passing, that A’s sensation (or illusion) might easily result from his own decreasing energy: a normal symptom of middle age. For this real or imagined overwork there are, broadly speaking, three possible remedies. He may resign; he may ask to halve the work with a colleague called B; he may demand the assistance of two subordinates, to be called C and D. There is probably no instance, however, in history of A choosing any but the third alternative. By resignation he would lose his pension rights.

By having B appointed, on his own level in the hierarchy, he would merely bring in a rival for promotion to W’s vacancy when W (at long last) retires. So A would rather have C and D, junior men, below him. They will add to his consequence and, by dividing the work into two categories, as between C and D, he will have the merit of being the only man who comprehends them both. It is essential to realize at this point that C and D are, as it were, inseparable. To appoint C alone would have been impossible. Why? Because C, if by himself, would divide the work with A and so assume almost the equal status that has been refused in the first instance to B; a status the more emphasized if C is A’s only possible successor. Subordinates must thus number two or more, each being thus kept in order by fear of the other’s promotion. When C complains in turn of being overworked (as he certainly will) A will, with the concurrence of C, advise the appointment of two assistants to help C. But he can then avert internal friction only by advising the appointment of two more assistants to help D, whose position is much the same.

With this recruitment of E, F, G and H the promotion of A is now practically certain. Seven officials are now doing what one did before. This is where Factor Two comes into operation. For these seven make so much work for each other that all are fully occupied and A is actually working harder than ever. An incoming document may well come before each of them in turn. Official E decides that it falls within the province of F, who places a draft reply before C, who amends it drastically before consulting D, who asks G to deal with it. But G goes on leave at this point, handing the file over to H, who drafts a minute that is signed by D and returned to C, who revises his draft accordingly and lays the new version before A. What does A do? He would have every excuse for signing the thing unread, for he has many other matters on his mind. Knowing now that he is to succeed W next year, he has to decide whether C or D should succeed to his own office. He had to agree to G’s going on leave even if not yet strictly entitled to it. He is worried whether H should not have gone instead, for reasons of health.

He has looked pale recently – partly but not solely because of his domestic troubles. Then there is the business of F’s special increment of salary for the period of the conference and E’s application for transfer to the Ministry of Pensions. A has heard that D is in love with a married typist and that G and F are no longer on speaking terms – no-one seems to know why. So A might be tempted to sign C’s draft and have done with it. But A is a conscientious man. Beset as he is with problems created by his colleagues for themselves and for him – created by the mere fact of these officials’ existence – he is not the man to shirk his duty. He reads through the draft with care, deletes the fussy paragraphs added by C and H, and restores the thing to the form preferred in the first instance by the able (if quarrelsome) F. He corrects the English – none of these young men can write grammatically – and finally produces the same reply he would have written if officials C to H had never been born. Far more people have taken far longer to produce the same result. No-one has been idle. All have done their best.

And it is late in the evening before A finally quits his office and begins the return journey to Ealing. The last of the office lights are being turned off in the gathering dusk that marks the end of another day’s administrative toil. Among the last to leave, A reflects with bowed shoulders and a wry smile that late hours, like grey hairs, are among the penalties of success. C. Northcote Parkinson, How to Use Parkinson's Law to Your Advantage Joel Falconer | 557 Shares Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. If you’re into productivity, you’ll know this proverb as Parkinson’s Law. This interesting statement was made by Cyril Northcote Parkinson, the famous British historian and author, in 1955 – first appearing as the opening line in an article for The Economist and later becoming the focus of one of Parkinson’s books, Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress. Parkinson was qualified to make such a statement, having worked in the British Civil Service, seeing first hand how bureaucracy ticks. Bureaucracy itself is a by-product of our culture, thanks to the limiting belief that working harder is somehow better than working smarter and faster.

Parkinson’s Law – work expands to fill the time available for its completion – means that if you give yourself a week to complete a two hour task, then (psychologically speaking) the task will increase in complexity and become more daunting so as to fill that week. It may not even fill the extra time with more work, but just stress and tension about having to get it done. By assigning the right amount of time to a task, we gain back more time and the task will reduce in complexity to its natural state. I once read a response to Parkinson’s Law insinuating that if it were an accurate observation, one would be able to assign a time limit of one minute to a task and the task would become simple enough to complete within that minute. But Parkinson’s Law is exactly that – an observation, not some voodoo magic. It works because people give tasks longer than they really need, sometimes because they want some ‘leg room’ or buffer, but usually because they have an inflated idea of how long the task takes to complete. People don’t become fully aware of how quickly some tasks can be completed until they test this principle.

Most employees who defy the unwritten rule of “work harder, not smarter” know that, despite the greater return on investment for the company, it’s not always appreciated. That’s related to the idea that the longer something takes to complete, the better quality it must inherently be. Thankfully, the increasing trend of telecommuted employment is changing this for those lucky early adopters, but only because employers have no idea what you’re doing with all that spare time! Let’s look at a few ways you can apply Parkinson’s Law to your life, get your to-do list checked off quicker and spend less of the work day filling in time just to look busy. This is relevant whether you work in an office or at home, since “work harder, not smarter” is a cultural idea that many individuals fall prey to even when nobody’s supervising their work. Running Against the Clock Make a list of your tasks, and divide them up by the amount of time it takes to complete them. Then give yourself half that time to complete each task. You have to see making the time limit as crucial. Treat it like any other deadline.

Part of reversing what we’ve been indoctrinated with (work harder, not smarter) is to see the deadlines you set for yourself as unbreakable – just like the deadlines your boss or clients set. Use that human, instinctual longing for competition that fuels such industries as sports and gaming to make this work for you. You have to win against the clock; strive to beat it as if it were your opponent, without taking shortcuts and producing low-quality output. This is particularly helpful if you’re having trouble taking your own deadlines seriously. At first, this will be partially an exercise in determining how accurate your time projections for tasks are. Some may be spot on to begin with, and some may be inflated. Those that are spot on may be the ones that you are unable to beat the clock with when you halve the time allotment, so experiment with longer times. Don’t jump straight back to the original time allotment because there may be an optimum period in between. If you work at a computer, a digital timer is going to be very useful when you start doing this. It’ll also save you a bit of time, because a timer allows you to see at a glance how much longer you have. Using your clock involves some addition and subtraction!

There are free utilities available for OS X , Linux , and Windows . Crush the Cockroaches of the Productivity World Look for those little time-fillers, like email and feed reading, that you might usually think take ten or twenty (or even, god forbid, thirty!) minutes. These are the “cockroaches” of the productivity world – little pests that do nothing but make your life a pain in the backside, pains that you can’t seem to get rid no matter how much you run around the house with a shoe or bug spray. Instead of doing the leisurely 20-30 minute morning email check, give yourself five minutes. If you’re up for a challenge, go one better and give yourself two minutes. Don’t give these tasks any more attention until you’ve completed everything on your to-do list that day, at which point you can indulge in some email reading, social networking and feed reading to your heart’s content. Not that I recommend you spend all your spare time that way! These are tasks where 10% of what you do is important and 90% is absolutely useless.

This forces you to tend to the important tasks – feeds you need to read in order to improve in your work (for instance, if you’re a web designer who needs to be read up on new practices), and emails that are actually high-priority. Experiment with how far you can take this. Make your criteria for what makes an email important, really strict and the penalties harsh! That means using the Delete button, by the way – I’m not advocating violence against your colleagues. You can experiment with Parkinson’s Law and squashing your deadlines down to the bare minimum in many areas of your life. Just be conscious of the line between ‘bare minimum’ and ‘not enough time’ – what you’re aiming for is a job well done in less time, not a disaster that’s going to lose you employment or clients. "Work Expands to the Time Allowed" "Work Expands to the Time Allowed" Math professor, programmer, and blogger John Cook discusses how work expands to fill the time allowed for it, and why the more trivial something is, the more time we waste discussing it. Advertisement Yesterday I found a copy of Parkinson's Law for $1 at a library book sale.

This book is best known for its opening line: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. The name "Parkinson's Law" can mean at least four different things: Advertisement The 1957 book by C. Northcote Parkinson The first chapter of Parkinson's book The principle expressed in the book's opening line, as understood by Parkinson The principle in the opening line as understood today. Buy now I'd heard of the general principle of Parkinson's Law a few years ago. I only found out about the book more recently. I didn't know until last night that Parkinson intended his principle to be applied more narrowly than it is applied now. Sponsored The full title of the first chapter of the book is "Parkinson's Law, or The Rising Pyramid." This chapter explains how work expands to fill the available resources within a bureaucracy and why bureaucracies grow exponentially at a compounding rate of around 5% per year. The subtitle addresses the mechanism for this growth, bureaucrats creating a pyramid of subordinates. Parkinson derives his law from "two almost axiomatic statements": An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals. Officials make work for each other.

Nowadays Parkinson's Law is usually condensed to saying work expands to the time allowed. It is applied to individuals as well as a burgeoning bureaucracies. Parkinson discusses this interpretation in his opening paragraph but then limits his attention to organizations. Advertisement Advertisement The total effort that 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. Chapter 3 of Parkinson's Law is "High Finance, or The Point of Vanishing Interest." This chapter is the source of the phrase bike shed arguments . In this chapter Parkinson states what he calls the Law of Triviality: … the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved. The idea is that people are more likely to contribute to the discussion of things they understand. A nuclear reactor will sail through the finance committee, but a bicycle shed will cause endless debate because everyone can understand it and everyone has an opinion.

Gear from Kinja Deals A Beginners Guide To Parkinson's Law: How To Do More Stuff By Giving Yourself Less Time / IMPOSSIBLE ® By Joel Runyon 46 Comments This post is part of a series on productivity laws and actionable ways to incorporate them into your work in order to simultaneously become more efficient and elevate your work to a higher level. If you’ve spent any sort of time reading about productivity hacks, you’ve probably run across Parkinson’s Law before. You might know the name or concept, but you may not know exactly it is or how you can implement this law to be as effective as possible. This post will show you exactly how to do that. Parkinson’s Law Definition: Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” How Parkinson’s Law Works In Real Life Whether or not you’re aware of it, you’ve probably experienced Parkinson’s Law many times in real life: In college, you had all semester to write a paper, and yet you wrote it in the last 72 hours before the deadline, and emailed it in at 5am on the morning it was due.

You had all week to finalize a proposal, but waited to do it until 4:30pm on the Friday. All year you knew you had a wedding or beach vacation to get ready for but you put off healthy eating and went on a crash diet four weeks before the trip. If you’ve experienced any of the above scenarios, you know exactly what I’m talking about. For months on end, you’re paralyzed and incapable of working, and then suddenly you become a machine in the final week before a task has to be done. What happened? Parkinson’s Law Cyril Parkinson, a British historian, first observed the trend during his time with the British Civil Service. He noted that as bureaucracies expanded, they became more inefficient. He then applied this observation to a variety of other circumstances, realizing that as the size of something increased, its efficiency dropped. He found that even a series of simple tasks increased in complexity to fill up the time allotted to it. As the length of time allocated to a task became shorter, the task became simpler and easier to solve. This concept goes hand in hand with the belief that you need to work hard rather than efficiently.

That mentality is reflected in the fact that managers often reward workers for (butt in seat) hours rather than hours spent actually working or results produced. However, as negative as this rule sounds so far, you can flip it on its head to use it to your advantage. How To Use Parkinson’s Law To Your Advantage. Unfortunately, very few people will actually tell you to work less. Even fewer people will force you to work less. That means that if you’re going to implement Parkinson’s Law, you’re going to have to do it yourself. You’re going to have to apply artificial limitations to your work in order to do it more efficiently. When you do, you’ll find out that you can do a lot more in a lot less time (like starting a blog in 30 minutes or less ). Here are a few tips for doing just that: Work without your computer charger. Force yourself to get stuff done before your computer runs out of battery. Use the Pomodoro technique . The Pomodoro technique helps you to systematically chop your tasks into chunks, and forces you to set a specific timetable for accomplishing them. For more details on how to implement the Pomodoro technique, check back for our full guide on this next week.

Restrict your time artificially by moving throughout the day. Force yourself to move every two hours, and create a set task list. Check out the workplace popcorn strategy for more on this. Instead of trying to write 1,000 words in a day, run x miles in a day, or go to the gym, make a rule to do XYZ before 10am. Get it done early and then let yourself coast. You’ll be surprised at how much this frees up the rest of your day. An extreme example of this is to stop working after noon altogether. I don’t do this (I have too much work to do!) but Sean Ogle swears by it . If you wake up early enough, you can certainly use this to get more done and to have more free time. Blackmail yourself. Get an accountability partner who will fore you to pay up, literally, if you work past a certain time or take too long to something. I do this with Vic for fitness stuff and with Joanna for work stuff. In addition to enjoying the mental victories, if you use this approach, you’ll be motivated by real financial consequences. Set a hard deadline.

Find a four-week program or an eight-week fitness program , set a specific goal for the end of that length of time, and set it in stone. Have something like a photo shoot planned to motivate you to hit your goals. You can certainly lose ten pounds in six months, but you can also do it in eight weeks if you set eight weeks as your limit. Limit tasks like responding to email to thirty minutes a day. Instead of agonizing over each email, spend thirty minutes on your emails at the end of the day and be done with it. You’ll find that smaller tasks take up much less time this way. Does your coffee shop close at a certain time? If so, force yourself to stop working when it closes. Stop Working Late When I first worked at a marketing agency, I used to work late all the time. I’d take work home with me or stay at the office. I was convinced that I needed to show my “dedication”, “earn my stripes”, and simply get more stuff done, and that working more hours was the way to do this. Nope. Interestingly enough, I worked more but got less done. On top of that, I was stressed all the time. WTF?

I was an addict, not to work, but to thinking that I was working. It got so bad that one day I decided enough was enough. I remember specifically saying that I was no longer going to work after 6pm. Full stop. Like an addict, I had a hard time at first. I was scared, worrying that I was never going to get enough done, and that there wasn’t enough time in the day. I was wrong. I actually found out that I was more productive than ever and that I had time for a social life outside work again. The counterintuitive thinking actually works. Creating artificial restraints on my work created more freedom. Refuse to bring work home. This is easily the best advice, and it works 100% of the time when I implement it. Simply refuse. Don’t work from your bed or couch, no matter how comfortable that may be. When you leave the office, coffee shop, or co-working space, simply stop working. There will be enough time to work tomorrow. Let your home be just that – your home. Use Restrictions To Create Freedom The overarching lesson from Parkinson’s Law is that restrictions can actually create freedom. This is completely counter-intuitive thinking but it’s true.

Even outside of simple task management, restriction creates freedom. Try these exercises on for size: Think of ten things you see on a daily basis. Now think of ten things in your local coffee shop. Which was easier? Name twenty words in Spanish. Now count out the numbers 1-20 in Spanish. Which was easier? Name ten fun activities. Now now think of ten different water activities. Which was easier? Specificity and restrictions create freedom and nourish creativity. Add them to your arsenal of tools as you become an uber productive and efficient creator. How To Use Parkinson’s Law To Do The Impossible While it’s not specifically articulated in Parkinson’s official theory, you can also use the inverse of this rule to increase the quality and magnitude of your work. If you expand the scope of your ideas, and the magnitude of your goals, you can often create a gap between what you’re currently capable of and what you want to do. When you create that gap, you figure out how to grow into that gap. You suddenly figure out how to fill the gap. A great example of this is when we first partnered with PoP . I thought we might be able to raise 10k.

If I aimed for that, we probably would have raised exactly 10k, or maybe a little more. Instead, I decided to stretch , and we aimed for $25,000. We ended up raising a little over $26,000. That’s what I’m talking about when I mention the “edges of impossible” . I’ve referred to this in the past as “shoot first, aim later” or “jump … and then figure it out on the way down.” Pick a big goal, commit to it, and you’ll probably find that you’re able to figure out a way to achieve it. The Takeaway Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” If work expands to fill the time allotted to it, make less time available to get more work done quicker. How can you add artificial parameters to your life and work in order to become more productive and more prolific, and to operate on a bigger scale? Which techniques work for you?

Further Reading On Parkinson’s Law Check out these additional resources for more on Parkinson’s Law: Parkinson's law - definition of Parkinson's law by The Free Dictionary Parkinson's law - definition of Parkinson's law by The Free Dictionary Related to Parkinson's law: Peter Principle , Murphy's Law Parkinson's Law n. Any of several satirical observations propounded as economic laws, especially "Work expands to fill the time available for its completion." [After Cyril Northcote Parkinson (1909-1993), British historian.] Parkinson's law n (Economics) the notion, expressed facetiously as a law of economics, that work expands to fill the time available for its completion [C20: named after C. N. Parkinson (1909–93), British historian and writer, who formulated it] Par′kinson's law′ (or Law′), n. any of various statements about business and office management expressed facetiously as if a law of physics, as the statement that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. [1950–55; after C.

Northcote Parkinson (born 1909), English historian, who proposed them] ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend: Noun 1. Parkinson's law - C. Northcote Parkinson's cynical observation that work will expand so as to fill the time available for its completion 2. Parkinson's law - C. Northcote Parkinson's cynical observation that the number of subordinates in an organization will increase linearly regardless of the amount of work to be done Translations Parkinson's Law by John Yesterday I found a copy of Parkinson’s Law for $1 at a library book sale. This book is best known for it’s opening line: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. The name “Parkinson’s law” can mean at least four different things: The 1957 book by C. Northcote Parkinson The first chapter of Parkinson’s book The principle expressed in the book’s opening line, as understood by Parkinson The principle in the opening line as understood today. I’d heard of the general principle of Parkinson’s law a few years ago. I only found out about the book more recently.

I didn’t know until last night that Parkinson intended his principle to be applied more narrowly than it is applied now. The full title of the first chapter of the book is “Parkinson’s Law, or The Rising Pyramid.” This chapter explains how work expands to fill the available resources within a bureaucracy and why bureaucracies grow exponentially at a compounding rate of around 5% per year. The subtitle addresses the mechanism for this growth, bureaucrats creating a pyramid of subordinates. Parkinson derives his law from “two almost axiomatic statements”: An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals. Officials make work for each other. Nowadays Parkinson’s law is usually condensed to saying work expands to the time allowed. It is applied to individuals as well as a burgeoning bureaucracies. Parkinson discusses this interpretation in his opening paragraph but then limits his attention to organizations. The total effort that 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. Chapter 3 of Parkinson’s law is “High Finance, or The Point of Vanishing Interest.” This chapter is the source of the phrase bike shed arguments .

In this chapter Parkinson states what he calls the Law of Triviality: … the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved. The idea is that people are more likely to contribute to the discussion of things they understand. A nuclear reactor will sail through the finance committee, but a bicycle shed will cause endless debate because everyone can understand it and everyone has an opinion. I picked up a copy of Mrs. Parkinson’s Law at the same book sale, also for $1. I’d never heard of it before, but I imagine it will be entertaining. Related posts: Parkinson's Law – How Limits Help You Parkinson's Law - The Art of Setting Limits Parkinson's Law is one of the most important laws to understand in relation to the use of your time. Once you’re aware of it, you can significantly improve your work-life balance. Credited to Englishman, C. Northcote Parkinson in 1955, it states that: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. At some level, we all know this happens, but raising awareness of it to the level of a ‘law’, means you can use it rather than be a victim.

Your values, purpose, roles, goals, projects, and even actions are all affected by your level of awareness and attitude towards them. What this means in practice... It's helpful to consider Parkinson's Law in terms of two levels: Higher (the things you actually decide to do) and Lower (what you actually end up achieving): Higher level. Essentially, this means anything that dictates what you do. The ‘higher’ you go (values, purpose, roles and goals), the greater the implications it has in terms of your work-life balance . In other words, unless you put limits on your work, it will expand into the rest of your life. Lower level. On a day to day basis, seek to improve the accuracy of the time you allocate to your projects, tasks and actions. For example, say you had two weeks to complete a minor project -- more than enough time to do it. Parkinson's Law would apply if you give it more thought and time than it warrants, which is highly probable. Increase your awareness to improve your advantage The most important thing? Becoming aware of it. Doing so will mean you gradually improve your ability to allocate the right amount of time to anything.

This is one of the strategies at work and in the rest of life, too. As you improve your 'allocation accuracy', you'll increasingly notice the advantages it gives you. Major benefits include increased efficiency, less stress, better balance, and more time to do what you want with. Learn to limit Learn to put limits on what you do. Work expands to fill the time allocated to it, so set limits on what you can. This takes time and practice to get right, but, as with all effective systems, it’s worth it. Do you have a choice about when to stop working each day? If your working hours are undefined, an awareness of Parkinson's Law will benefit you and your ability to set realistic limits on it. Work out what hours you want, or need, to put in, and stick to them. Obviously a degree of flexibility is needed, but make it the exception to the rule. Whether you work from home or not, use limits. Not only for your own well being, but for others who also value your time, attention and presence. --- What is Parkinson's Law? definition and meaning - BusinessDictionary.com leadership Use 'Parkinson's Law' in a Sentence Mr.

Gilliam harvested the tenants of Parkinson's law to accurately depict the necessary process in obtaining personal identification from the Ministry. 16 people found this helpful Many American citizens believe that the various agencies within all branches of our government regularly ensure they remain compliant with Parkinson's Law. 14 people found this helpful Even though the summer season was their time of least demand, it seemed like the workers acted just as busy as when they were in full force in November before the Christmas rush in evidence of Parkinson's Law. 14 people found this helpful

Question: Whose law states that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”?
Answer: PARKINSON