“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its competition.”
– Northcote Parkinson

Last November, my wife and I went to Greece over Thanksgiving Week. There are many countries and experiences left on my bucket list, and the opportunity to see the Parthenon and Acropolis in person was too great to pass up. Two months have passed and I am still going back to the photos, extremely thankful for the memories.

Packing for the trip was a bit of a mental puzzle: 

• One Week.
• Average temperatures (54–64 degrees) with increased rainfall in November.
• A mix of day trips, nightlife, museum-hopping, bike tours, and long walks.

As you might have guessed, we overpacked. Not by much, but enough to where I noticed at least a few articles of clothing that were never needed.

Why is that?

It’s emblematic of Parkinson’s Law, that work (or clothes) expand to fill the time available (or in this case, the bag you choose). No one is immune to this, it happens to most of us.

But let’s talk about work, specifically for one-person businesses. It’s important for you to know the more time you give a task, the more things seemingly need to be done.

Remember when you had a paper due in 4 weeks in college? You likely waited three weeks to start — procrastination — or you tried to boil the ocean — scope creep. The same is true for marketing campaigns, strategy sessions, and meetings.

What can you do to use Parkinson’s Law to your advantage?

Give tasks less time and structure them to maximize success.

3 Takeaways:

1. “Pack Smaller Bags.” When it comes to work, less is more. Less quantity, more quality. Timeboxing your tasks, with a clear start and end time, helps keep you present and focused on the outcome. When it comes to projects or longer tasks, cut the expected time in half. You’ll likely be at 80% of the final product and this deadline-forcing action helps you stave off procrastination. It also minimizes scope creep.
   
2. “Focus Creates Flow. Flow Creates Results.” For tasks that require intense thinking, you need to focus. There is a higher state of focus called “flow” where everything is clicking for you. The concept of flow was developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He sees it as a time where you are completely immersed in what you are doing. Have you ever written a presentation, solved an Excel spreadsheet, or done something so intently that you lost track of time? That’s flow. But achieving flow requires you to eliminate distractions – email, meetings, and social media. It can take up to 23 minutes to regain flow once distracted.
   
3. “Sprint, then rest.” Interval training is a type of exercise training that substitutes long workouts for a series of high-intensity workouts broken up with rest or breaks. High-performance athletes derive more training effects by maxing out their intensity over shorter periods. And then resting. The same technique yields productivity and mental benefits when it comes to work. Small, intense bursts of work followed by breaks helps you maintain focus when working and recharge after sessions of deep focus.

1 Action:

Set aside 45 minutes today for deep focus. Choose an activity and an outcome. Remove distractions and set a time for 45 minutes. After the timer goes off, evaluate your progress and then take a 15 minute break. While you may need to acclimate to intense work for short bursts, you will see improvement – both in how much you get done and how good you feel.

More time can be your enemy. Here’s to doing more with less!

Hubert