Beat Parkinsons Law and do more in less time

Do you ever feel less motivated and less productive when you have lots of time available?
Planning a busy day (and staying focussed) can be very challenging, but no planning and multitasking even leads to poorer results.
The solution is to use Parkinson's Law for time setting and improving your productivity

Parkinson's Law says that the more time you dedicate to a task, the more time you will spend on that task.
This can lead to stress because you tend to postpone difficult tasks till the end, knowing you have plenty of time. It is much better to put a tight time limit on your task; this way, you feel the time pressure, and most people need that little pressure to be productive.

As you see, this is not a time management or productivity technique, but Parkinson's Law is often used in combination with other time management techniques such as time blocking, the Pomodoro technique, ...
This combination makes it so powerful.

Strategies to beat Parkinson's Law

Plan carefully

A good plan is the work half done.
When you plan your work in advance, you will be working more efficiently and less likely to procrastinate. Creating a plan also helps you manage your time more efficiently.
When you create a plan, you have to:

List your tasks and actions

break your tasks in manageable chuncks

prioritize taks

set (smart) goals

Set shorter deadlines

By setting shorter deadlines, you create an urgency, which helps you focus more on your task.
knowing you have a tight deadline encourages you to take immediate action, and this prevents you from procrastination

Use time-blocking

Allocate specific blocks of time for different tasks, grouping similar tasks together. This will limit the time available for each task, forcing you to work more efficiently.

Use the Pomodoro technique

By using Parkinson's Law in conjunction with the Pomodoro technique, you work in shorter segments, which increases your focus. So, it improves your productivity and keeps your concentration high.
The short breaks after each segment help keep your mind fresh.

Review and adjust

As you might have noticed, this system requires regular revision, reviewing and adjusting.
By mastering all this, you will use your time more effectively and be more productive.

Pro's and Con's

This time management technique is especially useful for professional environments, entrepreneurs and personal development. It helps you manage your time and daily routines.
People in more artistic branches will not have much advantage of this, because you cannot measure creativity in time. Creativity comes and goes sudden.

Pro's:

Optimization of your efficiency

Enhanced foucs

working deadlines

Con's:

More stress

less focus on quality

Why is it called Parkinson's Law?

Parkinson's Law was first introduced in 1955 in a book called "Parkinson's Law: the pursuit of progress" by a historian called Cyril Parkinson.
In here, he wrote a story about a woman whose sole task for the day was to send a postcard. She had an entire day to complete this task, so she spends one hour finding a right card, 90 minutes writing that card, she took her time looking for an umbrella, a slow walk to the post office, ...
And at the end, it really took her a whole day to do something she could have done in an hour.