Applying Parkinson's Law
In Your Life To Shorten
The Time That You Need

You can apply Parkinson's Law in your daily activities in order to finish your tasks and activities in shorter periods of time.

This law was first revealed by Cyril Northcote Parkinson and it states: "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

Parkinson explains that a person tends to finish an activity within a short period of time when the time period given before the deadline is short. And a person tends to finish an activity using a longer period of time when the time period or "allowance" given before the deadline is longer.

Another example of this is when a person cram before submitting a project. The time allowance to work on the project can be like a month yet the person may start working on the project in the last week of the month and he/she will finish it by the end of the month.

So what happened here? It only took the person 1 week to finish the project instead of the allotted 1 whole month of 4 weeks even if he/she produces minimal results for the project.

Using Parkinson's Law to Your Advantage

So how can you use this law to your personal benefit?

The answer is very simple. You should require yourself to finish personal activities within shorter period of time. Let’s say you should require and discipline yourself to complete an activity faster and set a shorter deadline for your work.

You should reward yourself if you manage to fulfill it and you should penalize yourself as some sort of punishment if you’re not able to fulfill it using a shorter period of time.

Never cheat yourself when you practice the Law of Parkinson because this activity will be part of your learning and personal discipline. If you’re sincere with this training, then you’ll reap the benefits later and that’s for sure.

Time limitations or time pressure can help you work faster and with more accuracy. Some managers and bosses in companies sometimes apply this principle on their workers in order to increase the speed of work and productivity resulting in more results and income.

Similar Principles and Ideas to the Law

Relating to the use of computers: The data expands in order to fill the maximum capacity for storage.

Relating to money possession: Earning more money leads to more spending.

Relating to Personnel: The more company personnel, the more responsibilities to fulfill.

Relating to Population: The more people in a country, the more supplies of necessities needed.

In generalizing Parkinson's Law, it is usually stated that: "The demand upon a resource tends to expand to match the supply of the resource." A statement is sometimes added to this which is an extension: "The reverse is not true."

Parkinson's Law can be very reasonable and logical when you think about it. It deals with human behavior on how personal time is used. Improving your discipline with this principle can help you produce more with better quality which will make things easier for you in the future.

Go from Parkinson's Law to Dynamic Time Management