Shine With Grace

I learnt the term Parkinson’s Law from Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, who argued that applying the law,  i.e. “shortening work time to limit tasks to the important“, together with the 80/20 rule, i.e.  ‘limit tasks to the important to shorten work time”, in our daily life could allow us to do less but achieve more.

What is the Parkinson’s Law?

The Parkinson’s Law was first articulated by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in the 1950s, based on his observation of the British Civil Service.  Mr. Parkinson noted that even though the British overseas empire declined in importance, the number of employees at the Colonial Office increased.   Why?  Parkinson argued that the two contributing forces of the phenomenon were:

1. An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals, and
2. officials make work for each other.

Applications

Based on Parkinson’s finding, the law was found to be applicable in many areas, which include:

• the demand upon a resource always expands to match the supply of the resource
• individuals’ costs of living raise when their income level increases
• work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion
• no matter how many tasks a person gets, he/she tends to get all the things done

When come to think about it, the law is bloodily true in many aspects.  Examples from our everyday experience include:

• especially true for ladies:  the bigger our handbags, the more stuff (useful and not-so-useful) we carry in our bags
• similarly:  regardless of the capacity of our hard disk, we can always fill it with data with no difficulty
• in work:  never mind we are given 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 months to complete a task, we tend to finish it at the last minute

The Parkinson’s Law and your efficiency

If no matter how much time we are given to complete a task, we finish it at the last minute anyway, Tim Ferriss in his 4-hour Work Week suggested that we should allow very short time (with a clear deadline) for our tasks (and also tasks that we delegate and contract out).  Due to time pressure, we would complete the tasks with greater focus and therefore (in some cases, arguably) higher quality.

Doesn’t it sound logical to you?   Give it a try to find out.

Related posts:

• Are You Working For Work’s Sake?
• Work Smart - And You Don’t Need To Work That Hard!
• Review Our Life Strategy - Lessons From Cirque de Soleil
• A Strategy For Happiness And Efficiency
• Good To Be Lazy

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