Parkinson’s Law says that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." I’ve been reminded recently just how true that is.
I’ve yet to miss writing a daily entry here since October 12, 2009. But until this year, every daily entry was posted by 9 a.m. It wasn’t self-discipline. The largest percentage of those who subscribe to this blog choose to get their entries by email. The service I use checks for new posts once a day at 9 a.m. and then automatically emails whatever I've posted. If a new entry wasn’t
up by 9 a.m., an email didn’t get sent. And as far as those subscribers
would be concerned, the streak would effectively be over.
Then I learned how to change the setting to email at whatever time I choose.
Since I learned how to change the email time, I’ve stopped writing the posts before 9 a.m. In fact, there have been lots of days where I haven’t gotten that day’s post done until much later in the afternoon. “Too busy.” “Not enough time.” “Too many other projects going on.” The ability to change the posting deadline to a later time let the work expand to fit that available time.
This past week, I got back to old habits. In fact, I changed the time to 7 a.m. Now I’m back to writing posts the night before. I can’t promise there won’t be days where I change the post time to later (I’m a lot busier now than I was in 2009). But for nearly four years, I’ve hit whatever deadline was in place, whether I moved it or not. And I’d like to try to make that deadline earlier than it has to be.
If you’re constantly turning in projects right at the deadline, it’s Parkinson’s Law at work. The best way to fight it is to change the deadline and force yourself to stick to it. Change the deadline and you can change the law.