Use Parkinson’s Law To Get Productive

I read about Parkinson’s Law in Tim Ferris‘ Four Hour Work Week, and I recently experienced again how this ‘law’ works. It all about deadlines, and avoiding procrastination. Do you know the moment you finish a job just before the deadline and you find out that it didn’t take as much effort as you thought it would beforehand?

The definition Wikipedia gives for Parkinson’s Law is: “[...] a humorous observation (and not a scientific law) that states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”.
This basically means that the same job gets bigger and bigger the more time is available to complete it. So because there is more time available it also seems like you need more time for it.

So how can you use Parkinson’s Law? Read more

Make Sure You Have A Deadline

Apart from the work you do for your studies or job, you might have plans for a project on the side. Maybe you want to learn how to surf, play guitar or organize an event. But there is a lot of work to be done and you don’t want to spend every night working too. So your new plans seem less important, you might even forget about them at times, and you keep on postponing the required actions to make it work.

An example could be John, a graduate student who wants to start a band. He plays the bass and sings, and he already knows what kind of music he wants to play, and that he wants to take it serious and perform live on stage a lot. John is dreaming about this for a long time, and he doesn’t want to wait any longer.

He already started to write some songs, but Read more