Hello students. I have a post today about something that really pushed me into productivity through the end of my undergraduate degree and graduate school. Let me premise this post with a small case study.
Two people are given an assignment to complete. The first is given 2 days to complete the assignment and the second is given 2 weeks.
Student 1 freaks out over only having two days to complete the assignment and starts researching immediately. He gets the assignment in but literally with only a few hours to spare. He spends the whole two days working on the assignment.
Student 2 doesn’t freak out as he has two weeks. He thinks about doing some work on the project right away but puts it off until 3-4 days before the due date. He then proceeds to hold off the assignment till the last minute and ends up spending less time working on the paper cumulatively than student 1.
What can we learn from this?
Very simply, ‘work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion,’ the quality of an assignment doesn’t really differ if you have two days or two weeks to accomplish it. This is the core premise of Parkinson’s Law.
So the next question is how can we apply this to school?
1: Start assignments immediately, the quicker you start the easier it will be to finish the assignment.
2: Make yourself accountable. If you’re doing group work, make sure you all finish your sections at least a few days before it’s due.
3: (this one you may not like) Set up an early completion time with your prof. This will force you into the first student’s paradigm rather than the second.
Have you had any experience in using the Parkinson’s Law? Leave a comment.
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