URGENT: The Time Box We Live In And Why This Is So

I am pondering on what to do when I get stretched out and run out of time for the many things I would like to get done both on the business as well as the private side of life. I will get into my thoughts on this in a later post this week, but first I would like to share some insights on time management.

I think we can agree that working with innovation you are bound to have time issues. This career is time-consuming. You are being pulled from all directions, and no matter how many items you cross off your to-do list, the number of tasks just seems to keep increasing.

Time—or more likely the lack of it—is something we often get into during my network meetings as all of the members spent most of their time in a little box labelled URGENT. We have a general tendency to assume there’s nothing we can do about it; issues with time just go with the territory, right?

Well, that answer is only partially correct. And the reality is that unless you get control of your time management issues, you stand little chance of reaching the goals you have set. As mentioned, I will get back to this, but first, let’s take a look at at where our time goes. I find two principles to be of particular interest on this.

• Parkinson’s Law. This is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” First put forth by British naval historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an essay in The Economist in 1955 and later in a bestselling book called Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress, this principle explains why you—and the people you delegate to—rarely finish a task before its deadline.

Given 30 days to complete a report, we will research, research, and research some more before buckling down to write it in the last few days before the deadline. Yet if given two days to write the same report, we will manage to do all the research and writing within two those days. This also explains why so many people are seen in stores on Christmas Eve doing their shopping at the very last minute. Some of them are there looking for last-minute markdowns, but the majority are probably there because of Parkinson’s Law.

Parkinson’s Law is responsible for many of the mind-numbing meetings we all find ourselves in each week and explains why your time budget almost undoubtedly shows that you’re spending vast amounts of time on non-priority issues.

• The 80/20 Rule (also known as the Pareto principle) also can be applied to time management. Using this rule, we can say that 80 percent of effects come from 20 percent of the causes. In other words, 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your efforts, which means we all spend a lot of our time and energy on doing things that don’t move us closer to our work or personal goals.

Being aware of the effects of Parkinson’s Law and the 80/20 Rule can help you take a fresh look at your time budget to identify ways in which you could better manage your time.

Perhaps you also will find it helpful to ponder on these questions:

• If you had to, could you realistically accomplish in four days what it now takes you five days to do? In other words, are there items on your to-do list that could be delegated or even dropped altogether without the world coming to an end?

• Which 20 percent of your effort produces 80 percent of your results?

These principles have helped me gain a better understanding of time management issues. Perhaps you can add more to this?