Archives for August 2022

Have you ever wondered why some people, despite having the same hours in the day as you, get so much more done? If you are into productivity, you might know the major reason of this to be the “Parkinson’s Law.” No, not the disease Parkinson’s, but the law. This term, “Parkinson’s Law”, was first coined by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in a humorous essay he wrote for “The Economist” in 1955.

Parkinson’s law states “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

To explain this law is rather simple, but it’s implications are hugely impactful. As shown in the picture above, time and effort are inversely proportional. What that means is that when you put more effort in getting something done, it takes less time compared to if you did the same task with less effort. That is where Parkinson’s Law comes in.

Parkinson’s law is important for how you allocate your time for tasks, i.e., how many hours you give to each task that you have to do. For example, if I had to write an essay for my English class, I could allocate it like 1 hour. And if I allocated/decided to give 1 hour to writing that essay, it would take me no less than 1 hour. Why? Because I have the time and my brain knows that I have the time.

But if I wanted to be more productive, or get more done, I would want to spend less time doing the essay. Now that I know of Parkinson’s law, even if I gave it 30 minutes, I would get the essay written anyhow.

To take another example, let’s imagine that we have a project to due tomorrow and right now is only the morning. Being a fellow procrastinator that most of us are, we would not even start doing the project until later in the evening. Then when we’d realize we have no time, we would rush and get the project done anyhow before our school time.

What I mean to imply by this example is that when we have less time, we get the work done anyhow. So the trick here is to allocate less time to tasks in the first place. If you think that you would take 1 hour to do something, give it only 30 or 40 minutes. If you think you might take around 5 hours to study for an upcoming test, give yourself only 3 hours.

In the beginning, you might feel that it’s not working, but as you keep practicing your time management keeping Parkinson’s law in mind, you will save a lot of time in the long run and you will have become a lot more productive. Give it a try, let me know if it works.

If you read this article till here, thank you so much! I sincerely hope this was helpful.

It has been a while since I last wrote, almost 3 months now. These “almost 3 months” have been a good learning time. Even though I haven’t been writing articles or making videos on YouTube recently, I have become a part of a club, I have made friends, and I have also started reading fiction. So these 3 months weren’t entirely a waste. Before I forget, this article only has some of my random thoughts and some really important realizations that I’ve recently had.

Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.

– David Allen

Time Management

Recently, making and managing my time has been a real struggle. From as much as I recall, I could make enough time to do everything that I wanted to do before these “3 months”, I had also started a podcast which remains a secret for now. But then all of a sudden I couldn’t make any time. Why was that? I have no idea. A major reason for why that changed, I think, was because I stopped using my task management system.

A task/time management system was one of the most important and impactful things that I have come across. My system consisted of 3 things: A to-do list, a calendar, and a note-taking app.

1. To-do list: As the above quote by one of the most productive persons of the century, David Allen, states, “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” So noting things down is super important. Once you write it down somewhere, your brain doesn’t have to think about it. Whenever I have anything to do, I jot it in my to-do list app of choice at the very moment it comes to my mind. “What to write?” you ask. Well, it can be anything like calling a friend, writing an essay, visiting someone, or buying something, literally anything however big or small. Where to write it down? I prefer apps. I use Apple Reminder, but you can use “Google Tasks” or “Todoist”. I tried physical papers and diaries but the thing with those is you cannot carry them everywhere. Our digital devices like phones, however, are always on us. We bring them everywhere. So for me, it’s easier to write tasks down on my phone. If I don’t have my phone when I am in school, for example, I write it on my phone and update my to-do list app as soon as I can.
2. Calendar: After I have things on my to-do list, whenever I am home and I have a few minutes, I look at the list to see if there are things that should go on my calendar. What goes on my calendar? If I have anything that would take more than an hour or something that is to happen or to be done in the future, they go on my calendar. Things that don’t take much time never leave my reminders app. Which calendar do I use? Google Calendar because of its reminder customization options.
   Pro tip: When I come across someone’s birthday that I should remember, I put it in my calendar and make it recurring for every year.
3. Note-taking app: For the things that require more than a reminder, like planning something or writing about something, I use ‘Notion’ for that purpose. Notion is a free note-taking app that is more than just a note-taking app. You can literally organize your life around it. If you have been into the productivity world and have been watching YouTube, you must have seen many videos sponsored by them. Notion is sincerely amazing. If you don’t know what Notion is, watch this video: LINK. After you are convinced about using Notion, watch this playlist to learn more of the advanced things you can do with Notion, LINK.

This was a major thing I realized was the cause for why I hadn’t been making enough time: not noting things down. I realized when I wasn’t noting things down, I had to forcefully keep things in mind and I often forgot things. And since I wasn’t using my reminders app, things weren’t going up on my calendar and due to that, I didn’t have a proper estimate of how long things might take. This led to me wasting whatever empty slots I had in between tasks.

I want to write more than just this, but this article has already become long enough and you as well might have gotten bored. I hope not, but maybe. I am going to write a lot, also read a lot, but write too, not just think or learn, but also write and share. I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day. See ya again soon.