How long does it take you to do the work you set out to do? Productivity experts have long held that we do the amount of work we tell ourselves that we’re able to do in a given time. One of the most influential adages in this realm is Parkinson’s Law, coined in The Economist in the 1950s by writer Cyril Northcote Parkinson who went on to write a book about it.
Now, I’ll be the first person to tell you I haven’t read the book. (But you can get a copy from my favorite online used bookstore, Thriftbooks.)
Even if you never get around to reading the original book that espouses this philosophy, there are plenty of things we can learn from it as writers. Before we start talking about how to maximize a writing session using this principle, let’s take a deep dive into what Parkinson’s Law actually is.
What is Parkinson’s Law?
Parkinson’s Law dictates that the work will fill the time allotted for a project’s completion. The exact terminology reads something like this: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. If you have ever found that you work well under a deadline, chances are you have seen the effects of Parkinson’s Law firsthand.
Consider my latest writing project with my 90-Day Novel. I wanted to write an entire book by the start of August – an ambitious claim but definitely a doable one given my experiences of writing books fairly quickly. I didn’t have hopes of editing and publishing in 90 days, but maybe I could’ve achieved this if I’d set the goal.
I spent the first 30 days of the project outlining, brainstorming, and working with a book coach to pin the story down on the page. I spent June starting the draft of the book and found that I came up almost precisely to my goal: halfway to a finished novel. That means that July is going to need to see the second half of the novel and I’m right on track to finish by August.
Could I have done this in a shorter timeframe? Maybe.
Any writer who has ever participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) knows that getting 50,000 words done in 30 days is brutal, but tons of people manage to achieve it every year because they give themselves the container in which to write.
How long does it take to write a novel? The answer is different for everyone, but NaNoWriMo is a great clue into how long it takes. It’s Parkinson’s Law at work: a deadline exists and your work expands to fill it so that you get it done in just one month.
How to Hack Parkinson’s Law for Your Writing
With that out of the way, here are some clever ways you can hack Parkinson’s Law for your writing practice to get more words on the page, more books finished per year, and generally become more productive.
1. Set Time Constraints for Your Writing Sessions
If you’ve ever thought yourself to be good under pressure, this could be Parkinson’s Law at work in your daily life. Think about it this way: You’re in college and your term paper is due tomorrow at midnight. Yes, you had all semester to crank out that final ten-page paper, but it’s been a real bear to make any headway on it.
Now, you’re down to the wire.
For many students, writing comes far more easily when they look at the clock and know they only have twelve hours to finish that monster. The words seem to flow effortlessly from your fingers and you work with the increased adrenalin of knowing that your ability to meet the deadline has consequences if you fail.
Chances are, you found a way to finish or to do good enough.
You can impose the same sort of deadline on your writing. Setting goals and using time constraints leads to the anxiety of a deadline (even a self-imposed one) which can help you start to think more clearly about what you want to achieve.
But your goals don’t have to be as big as mine and they don’t have to build on each other. Instead, consider setting a word count goal for the day or even a single Pomodoro session. Be realistic yet optimistic about what you can accomplish in thirty minutes or an hour. You might be surprised by how quickly the words start to flow.
2. Break Up Your Work
In addition to setting time constraints for each session, you should also work to break up any of your assignments into smaller, more manageable chunks. If you have to write a term paper, then you might want to set time aside for research, writing, and creating a bibliography. Writing a novel can also be broken down into several unique tasks: research, plotting, outlining, writing, revising, and proofreading.
Before you set the timer for your Pomodoro session, know what aspect of writing you want to work on and how much can reasonably be achieved in that time block.
This is great for your mindset because it’s a lot easier to think about a smaller and therefore more achievable goal that resets every half-hour. Instead of thinking that you need to write an entire chapter today, you only need to write 500 words during this Pomodoro, repeated over the course of an afternoon.
It seems a lot easier to do it this way, doesn’t it?
As a bonus, you can reward yourself each time you hit your goal for the Pomodoro or session (you can decide what works for you). Sometimes, I like to move marbles from one jar to another. One marble is equivalent to one thousand words, and I love to see the marbles stack up. Other rewards include a piece of candy or a break to do something you love like doodling or coloring.
3. Be Realistic About Your Goals
Now, there is a downside to Parkinson’s Law – and that means that it doesn’t always work for you as a hack. The defining characteristic of those writers who are going to be successful with using this idea is that you have to be realistic about what you can achieve in a given timeframe. It won’t do you any good to say that you’re going to write 5,000 words today if you only have an hour.
Parkinson’s Law isn’t magic. It can’t help you to do the impossible.
Instead, you need to think about what is a reasonable achievement for you with the time that is available for your writing hobby (or career). Spend a little bit of time at the start of the week and see how much time you can realistically spend on your writing, broken down into half-hour slots if you’ll be using the Pomodoro technique.
If you aren’t sure how much you can get done in a Pomodoro, spend this week experimenting. What is your average word count per Pomodoro? When you set your goals, don’t force yourself into a box by using your highest-ever score. It’s bound to disappoint you.
Pick something a bit greater than your lowest score. It should be a reach for you but not entirely unobtainable. A goal that’s too easily achieved will take away from the satisfaction of a job well done and might be a little underwhelming when you tally up your results for the day. Think about how much more you do if you were motivated to hit ambitious goals and get rewards for them.
This is making Parkinson’s Law work for you.
How Can You Leverage Productivity Tips like Parkinson’s Law?
I think every writer wishes they could get more done in the same amount of time. When we give ourselves endless swaths of time and no real measurable goals, we find that we work slower. For some people, they might think that they need to work slower to have quality work, but that isn’t the case for all of us.
I can get thousands of words written in a day or I can get just a few hundred. My ability to write generally stays the same, no matter how much or how little time I give myself. The only way I can force myself to get better at my craft is by pushing onward and writing more.
And more.
And more.
I set realistic goals given how quickly I can type and try to reward myself with something I find to be satisfying. Sometimes, it’s as simple as crossing an item off a to-do list or a bubble bath at the end of the day. Any number of self-care activities could be leveraged as rewards for realistic work done inside the time constraints given.
All of these productivity tips work in tandem to help you achieve your writing goals. If you knew that you held the power to get your work done, what would you write? Chances are you would have released that debut novel, written that short story, or finished that personal essay by now.
Another way you can be held accountable for getting your writing done is by hiring a book coach. We give you real deadlines that you pay for with your own money – miss a deadline, and you miss out on the benefits that the session would have held for you. It’s a great way to incentivize writing if you’re averse to losing money (and I know I am).
If you think you could benefit from the help of a book coach, reach out to me today to learn more about my services and to talk about how I can help you bring your book to completion!