Using Parkinson's Law

The night before a big presentation or client meeting, it’s likely that we’ll be up late or working into the night. It doesn’t quite matter if we only had 6 hours of notice, 6 days, or 6 months.

That’s Parkinson’s Law in action.

Cyril Northcote Parkinson coined the adage in 1955 that work fills the time allowed to complete it. We as humans stretch our work to fill the time we have. That’s why we stay up late before a presentation, even if we’ve had months to prepare (maybe especially if we’ve had months to prepare).

But it’s not just something we are victim to.
Instead, we can use this principle to our advantage.

For example, if your office culture is typically one that works late, then what’s likely is that the work you have to complete for the day is stretched. Instead, if tomorrow you declared that you had to leave by 3pm, you’d still get all your work done because you’d be focused, not take as many unnecessary breaks and question if you had to be in every meeting.

SImilarly, studies have shown that companies who adopt a 4 day work week (32 hour, not 40 hour) end up being more efficient with their time. And less stressed, I might add. One other way to take advantage of Parkinson’s law to shorten meetings. Agendas stretch to fill the time, so if your “default” meeting time is 60 minutes, what if you and your colleagues agreed that meetings were now only 50 minutes to allow for breaks and rest? What if all meetings were only 25 minutes? Parkinson’s law dictates that you’d still get the work done.

Try it.

---

Caveday is a company aimed at improving your relationship to work. We write regular posts on Medium and send out monthly newsletters with productivity tips, life hacks, and recommendations. Sign up for the mailing list here.

Jake Kahana is a cofounder of Caveday. Sign up for his personal emails, called “The Email Refrigerator” here.