Parkinson’s Law
Imagine it is 10 years from now and ask yourself these 3 questions:
What challenges and changes will you have embarked on?
What contributions will you have generously given?
Can you do these things in 12 months instead?
In 12 months it’s unlikely that you’ll check every item off the list, but in endeavoring to do it all anyways you will likely surprise yourself by accomplishing more and going further than you originally thought was possible.
In 1955, Cyril Northcote Parkinson described this reality in an essay for The Economist: “[it] is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
If you give yourself 10 years to make a change then it will almost certainly take 10 years (or more). If you give your team an hour to discuss an important problem, it will almost certainly take an hour.
When it comes to contributions, think big. When it comes to estimating how long it will take, consider the possibility of increasingly smaller time frames.
The logic and value of this approach is simple: you do not get more time to do, create, and give. Therefore, it is imperative to find increasingly efficient ways to act and to routinely challenge the quantity of the time you think is required to make a change.
