Parkinson’s Law and the Pull of a Deadline

It was like a nightmare. I was entering a $100,000 essay contest, and it was deadline day, with plenty of work still to do. Then I noticed with horror that the deadline was not midnight, as I’d thought, but midday.

My first draft was written, but it still needed a lot of work. I’d planned to spend all day polishing it—a nice, leisurely 14 hours or so. I now had two hours.

Deadline 1, Caffeine 0

Here’s the thing, though. When I thought I had until midnight, my mind felt foggy, I couldn’t concentrate, and I was slowly working through the manuscript while succumbing to endless distractions and diversions. I drank coffee, but it didn’t seem to have any effect.

When I realised that I only had until midday, however, I suddenly became an essay-writing machine. I focused in on the text and found myself seeing problems and devising solutions with perfect clarity. I did only what was necessary, and accomplished that with speed and precision.

In less than two hours, I pulled a decent but disorganised first draft into an essay I was proud of—and I had time to double-check everything and send in all the materials with almost half an hour to spare.

Parkinson’s Law in Action

I wonder what would have happened if the deadline had indeed been midnight. Would my essay have been better or worse?

Logic dictates that the end result would have been better in 14 hours than two. I would have had more time to make improvements, to go through a series of drafts and make the essay the best it could be.

But we’re not logical creatures, are we? (If you’re not sure about that last statement, just go and switch on the TV news for a minute or two, and then come back and continue reading.) I think it’s possible that my two highly focused hours produced a better result than 14 unfocused, distracted hours.

I’ve made my living as a freelancer for over a decade now, so I do have a certain amount of discipline. I don’t always leave things to the last minute—I know that I must work consistently if I want to survive. But I also know that a looming deadline sharpens the mind and removes all the excuses and evasions in a heartbeat.

One thing I know for sure is that I would never have finished the essay in two hours. I would have spent most of the day on it—probably not going right up to the midnight deadline, but certainly working late into the afternoon or evening.

It’s an example of Parkinson’s Law, which I first learned about from my high-school history teacher, Dr. Thompson:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

If you have 14 hours, you’ll take 14, even if it’s possible to complete the task in two. You don’t necessarily waste all that extra time, but you do invent a lot of extra steps. Some of those extra steps may be useful, but others simply add complexity. My deadline was a sudden reversal of Parkinson’s Law, stripping away all that extra complexity and reducing the task to the bare minimum.

Past Form

This is not the first time I’ve noticed this kind of effect. At university, I usually had one essay to write every week. At first, I filled the whole week with that task, dutifully acting out Parkinson’s Law.

Then, one week, I was busy with whatever things seem important and urgent to an 18-year-old history student with no real commitments, and I had to write the whole essay in one day.

The result? More clarity, more focus, and a better end result.