Parkinson’s Law

This is a continuation of Saturday’s post, and I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you still haven’t read that one, I suggest you read that at some point later, not necessarily now.

The second law I wanted to introduce is the Parkinson’s Law strategy. It is the idea of deliberately giving yourself a shorter deadline to feel the pressure of the deadline creeping up on you. This is very important to college students, as most mediocre papers are produced in the last 48 hours of the deadline, and it’s because they had a month or two to do it, and the brain decided to procrastinate. By giving yourself less time, you activate the ‘fight or flight’ response, giving you an adrenaline-driven focus on the work. Where this comes in handy is the tasks that is merely needed for completion, and perfection is out of the question, which is where the problem comes in. This technique does not always have desirable outcomes. When you want your work to be completely right, this technique is not advisable, as errors are prone in time-constrained conditions. It can produce lower-quality work, so it might better apply to tasks like finishing a book. It doesn’t promote deep thought in work, as you’re moving in a hasty pace. However, the most important thing with this tactic is to know when to stop. Overusing this tactic quickly leads to burnout, and after that, no work shall be done until recovery, which kind of beats the purpose of a productivity hack. Overall, it is a working technique that must be handled with utmost care.