Parky's Law - a rule to rebel against!

Parkinson’s Law (more a popular saying) informs us that a task will take exactly as long the time allocated (in my experience it tends to take a few minutes more than the time allocated!). We will continue to work on a project longer or build more complexity into a piece of work if we have time to do so.

For example a meeting booked for an hour will almost always take an hour (or an hour and 5 minutes)… if you are prepared to work until 9pm then your job will take until 9pm. We spend time as it is allocated (or as we are willing to allocate it).

To share one of my own recent awesome failures – I decided to reflect on my use of time yesterday. A day of meetings, including the early morning and late night calls (ah the joys of being in Asia), with a few email slots and some ‘to-do list time’. This morning I decided to take 30 minutes to review yesterday’s activity.

I discovered that having one hour set aside at the start of the day for email meant I spent an hour on emails…. today I reviewed the emails that I’d sent and read (honestly, I wouldn't categorize many as either ‘urgent or important’)

One slot of time I spent creating a project GANTT chart. I had only 30 minutes so I borrowed what I could from previous projects, worked furiously and produced something that was 80% there. I then shared it with a colleague. It came back to me this morning more refined and now at 99% (of what we needed). That was a good outcome.

Later in the afternoon I set aside 90 minutes to develop an opinion, view and approach for a meeting. I dug out research, read external best practice and built a slide deck for a proposal to share with my colleagues to influence their thinking… When I looked at that work this morning I scrapped it and instead sent a short email with a few discussion points for us to debate. If I’d only allocated 15 minutes yesterday I would have reached the same conclusion far more quickly, instead I made things too complex because frankly I had given myself time to do so.

My day was littered with small examples of Parkinson’s law. So much so that I worked right through to the start of my evening calls because… well, I had assumed that I would (and blocked my diary accordingly).

As I reflected there were a few possible reasons for my awesome failures yesterday:
1) Lack of clarity – while I had a to-do list, it wasn't clearly prioritized at the start of the day (that would have been a more useful way to spend some of the email time).
2) Too much prep – The meeting preparation example was driven by my desire to propose and discuss a perfect product, not chat through or expect thinking to evolve. Even in my meetings with key stakeholders when don't take a perfect product (they might suggest I never do) but we usually get to a good outcome.
3) Focus on things that I couldn't control – a few points in the day I was trying to find solutions for things that I couldn't solve. One of my peers recently reminded his Leaders to focus first on what you can control, then on what you can influence. (Clearly I need him to sit at the desk next to me and yell that at me occasionally)
4) Didn't delegate – I got on with doing all my to-do list myself. I was going to be the ‘hero’ of my day and solve/do everything myself. I often mention to coachees – it’s hard to give up control, but some tasks should be outsourced because it is important for your team/colleague’s development and for your own sanity!

Yesterday was a long day, and I saw progress on a number of fronts. But the progress didn't reflect the hours I spent. That was my awesome failure this week.

PS – I recognize there will be busy days – there are times when things go crazy and we rack up the hours - but it’s not ok to let that become a norm. I recognize I filled my time yesterday because I expected to work the hours, not because I really, really needed to and while the work didn't suffer – I did. :-)