Introduction
Hello. I'm Fuhad Khan. I'm a Senior in High School. This is my first newsletter post. I finally created it after being indirectly encouraged by authors and creators I look up to. Particularly Ali Abdaal, James Clear, Cal Newport, and Austin Kleon.
This week’s topic: Parkinson’s Law and ‘Enjoying’ Free time
The Story
On this last 3-day weekend (it’s actually been more than 3 weeks now), I had a lot to accomplish. I had to write a completed speech for my moot court competition, finish my Macaulay Honors application, do all my homework, and study for tests in the upcoming week. I was worried that it was a lot for 3 days. However, I knew I could finish it all on time. Great news! I did finish MOST of those tasks on time. By Saturday night, I felt really good about myself for almost completing everything on my to-do list. Fast forward to Sunday night: It was a disaster. I usually try to sleep by 10 pm. But that night, it was already past 10 and I was a mess. I still needed to practice my moot court speech and make index cards. My best friend, who was on my moot court team also was in a similar situation. Misery Loves company, right? Even though it was late at night we desperately called each other to talk about the upcoming competition and I vented out my frustration and disappointment.
I was stressed out because I still had work left and it was past 10 pm. In addition, I was more bothered that I still had work left even though I had 3 full days to finish to complete it. I was extremely frustrated, and I expressed that to my friend. I kept repeating “how did I manage to drag the work so much? How am I still not done?” The call was therapeutic. Although time was ticking, I felt much better and relieved. During my rant to her, I realized something. I realized that I dragged the work I had. Because I had 3 days, I abused the luxury of having so much time. Realistically, I could’ve finished all my work by Saturday and had a substantial amount of time for leisure. I expressed these thoughts to my friend. I thought at the time, given I had a shorter time to finish all my tasks, most likely I would’ve finished it by that deadline. However, I didn’t put any deadlines for myself during that weekend. I didn’t allocate separate time blocks for each task I had. It was arbitrary and vague. That vagueness led to my disappointing Sunday night.
When I realized how I used my time during that 3-day weekend, the first idea that appeared in my brain was Parkinson’s law of work. Parkinson’s law states “work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.” That quote never felt as real to me. I understood what Parkinson meant by that line. Simply put, if you allocate a certain amount of time for a particular task, you will take up the entire time to complete it. This can be a double-edged sword because if you allocate minimal time, you may get your work done in a reasonable amount of time (good for you); however, if you don’t allocate a specific amount of time or have a vague timeframe (like I had) then you will spend much more time than what is required to complete that task (not so good). Most of us will want to fall into the first case. I do too. I also realized that the lack of “time blocking” for tasks is primarily because I did not have certain leisure activities that I WANTED to do that weekend. For example, if I had been certain that I wanted to watch a movie on Sunday and go to the gym, then more likely I would’ve finished all my work by Saturday night because I would be looking forward to the “fun” stuff. It blew my mind at the time because this point became really clear to me. I also explained this to my friend. The moral of my story is that I should allocate certain time for certain tasks and have specific clear leisure activities I want to do. That way, I will be more willing to finish the work so I can have free time to do my leisure activities rather than finish the work just for the sake of it and for the sake of filling up the weekend.