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Work Expands to Fill Time Allocated for It
Did you know that smart people have studied the idea of time and work to come up with a law that you should know about? It’s called…
How Work Expands to Fill the Time You Allocate for It — What You Need to Know About Time
You may already know that smart people have studied the idea of time and work and have come up with a law they want you to know about. It’s called Parkinson’s Law and essentially states: “…Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” Now, sure, some things do take a specific amount of time. You’re not going to bake a cake in less time than it takes, but much of our work has arbitrary time limits and deadlines that you can work with to become much more productive.
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If you’ve ever been accused of procrastination, it might be due to this law, along with creating too long deadlines. Another problem is not understanding in advance what done actually means. You must know how to set clear time boundaries for yourself and for anyone you outsource to. You can challenge yourself and your team by creating incentives built into the calendar to finish projects early. To set up your processes right, you always need to know what…