How to improve your productivity by restricting yourself?
Time restriction and Parkinson’s law
So, you want to work on a project and finally finish it. You have set a time a day to dedicate it to working on it. But you still get distracted and start to do other things. You do not progress as you wish to do.
I’m familiar with scenarios like this. When I work on something knowing that I have unlimited time available to get done with it, why should I bother starting today?
Not long ago adding sources to a paper took me 2 days. Suddenly the task gained in complexity there were new unforeseen challenges to think about. I became an expert in finding excuses for postponing it. Over these 2 days, I may have spent one to two hours in actually adding sources and quote properly. The other time I wasted on too many small details.
This is phenomenon is called Parkinson’s law. It says that a task will expand to the time given to it. As described above, a simple task gains in complexity to fill out the dedicated time frame.
“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion,” still known as Parkinson’s Law.” ― Bill Bryson, The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island
Dedicated one day and it will consequently take all day long — you always find reasons why it takes longer. You’ll start to think about how to do it instead of doing it.
A deadline
Thinking about exams back in school. Despite being always possible, learning in advance never felt necessary. Most of the time I procrastinated until the evening before. In a condensed learning session, I hammered as much as possible inside my head.
It was a point where the deadline became clearly visible. The next morning was my deadline. At that point postponing was not a choice. It meant now or never.
This points out the importance of a deadline, which is also the idea of how to apply Parkinson’s law. Impose yourself with a deadline.
“The moment you put a deadline on your dream, it becomes a goal.”
— Harsha Bhogle
A task won’t extent according to its complexity, but to as much time as assigned to it. By shorting the assigned time you’ll start to work more focused.
The time that is becoming scarcer, no longer allows us to follow distractions or other random thoughts. One is forced to keep the essential in mind and ignores banalities. It forces you to utilize the 80 20 rule without being aware of it. Focus is maintained because we force ourselves to do it and have no choice.
In the reverse having infinite time leads to unnecessary postponing and prevents progress. Who has all the time in the world to do a task will take it.
In a study, Parkinson's law was applied to a wood logging crew. The production was increased in the group that had been imposed with a time restriction.
Be realistic
The deadline shall not be set arbitrarily. Don’t stress yourself unnecessarily. They should be individually adapted to the task at hand. If you ever did something similar before, determine based on previous knowledge how much time is really necessary.
Parkinson’s Law can be well combined with time tracking. By seeing where your time is going, and how long you are working effectively on your projects, you can set deadlines smarter each time.
It may take you a while to find the fine line between too little and too much time.
The more complex the project, the more likely it is to encounter unforeseeable problems. Therefore, the deadline must be adjusted accordingly to fit your individual needs. To do so integrate empty time frames in your planing for problem-solving.
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This is my 5th post for the ILLUMINATION 30-day writing challenge by Dr Mehmet Yildiz described in this article.