I’m finally back from my honeymoon, not nearly as tanned as I hoped to be, but certainly recharged despite the free bar! Naturally, there was lots of thinking back to my wedding in July and the whole complicated deal of arranging everything. Though I didn’t realize it at the time I learned a few valuable tips about Parkinson’s law and the whole process of setting effective deadlines. As an example of what I’m talking about I will refer to two of the biggest tasks my wife felt confident enough to give me (big mistake!), those being sorting out the music and writing my speech.
It turned out to be a far from smooth process. I listened to dozens of tracks and visited loads of sites in the name of research, to find the ideal wedding music that we both liked (I prefer heavy music, she really doesn’t…). It was the same process with the speech, trying to find the ideal lines, the best jokes. This went on for several unfocused months. And you know when I finally got to grips with the situation and resolved those tasks? In stereotypical fashion, it was a couple of days before the wedding.
Now this may not be a surprise to many people who have got married and it certainly won’t just apply to weddings. As a student I used to leave things to the last minute all the time. However, with my wedding the difference between the unfocused months before and that last week leading up to it was particularly distinct. As Parkinson’s law states, work expands to fill the time available to it. When you’ve got two years to write your speech, it becomes more of a chore than it needs to be.
This brings up a good point about deadlines in general. The average deadline, intended as a way to focus staff/individuals, actually makes things less efficient. Sure, a tight deadline can cause pressure and stress if you’re overloaded with other work to do, and that tends to be why people shy away from setting them. However, if you gain control of your workload first, setting tight deadlines (or waiting till deadlines are suitably closer like what happened with my speech) can be the next step to being super-productive.
February 16, 2009 Productivity
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