This Time Thing

Years ago, I learned about Parkinson's Law and it really lit a spark in me. I have been teaching it to my Lighten Up! students ever since. Lately, I have a renewed love affair with it.

First of all, it has nothing to do with Parkinson's disease. So that's out of the way, and your Lizard can relax.

What it has to do with, is time. Specifically our anticipated use of time, for any given task.

The theory is that ... get ready ...
"work swells - or shrinks - so as to fill the time available for its completion."

In other word, a project or task will often match the time we have allotted it, whatever that is. If we say: "I am going to give one hour to writing this newsletter," chances are that we will come pretty close to that, especially if we use some great focusing no-distraction tools. On the other hand, if we say: "I am going to get this newsletter done today," there is a darn good chance that it will take all day, with all kinds of interruptions along the way.

I have worked with this theory a lot, and have often been very impressed.

To help you, here is a super nifty little tool. It's called e.ggtimer.

It could not be any easier to use: you enter e.ggtimer.com in your address bar, followed by however long you want. Right now, I have mine set up at http://e.ggtimer.com/1hour because I want to be done with online work by that time. You can do 15 minutes, and give yourself that time to be on Facebook, or whatever you want to manage more closely (because hey, none of us are going to die wishing we had spent more time on Facebook)

Ok, all yours. Parkinson's Law, and a great little tool.

Let me know what you think?