Parkinson's Law

I've been following John Somnez (sp) on his youtube channel lately (Simple Programmer). I highly recommend it if you like listening to tech, business, or self development as background noise.

He talks in several of his video about the idea of Parkinsons Law, which essentially is that a project might actually take X amount of hours. If you allow it though, it will take all the hours.

Focusing in on a projects is how I have been successful and gotten several of my promotions.

My current Store Manager likes to boast about how fast he was at building a display, or finishing a task list. He may be dead on, but I prefer to work smarter not harder. Many times the task a hand is mundane, and seems like there may not be a "smarter" way to do it.

This to me is where Parkinson's Law can apply dramatically. I can focus on a project to get it to completion. This is not to say I lack multitasking skills, it is simply a different approach to the same mundane problem. Working in retail, I get dozens of things thrown by me constantly. It is really easy to let one of those side step you for 5, 10, or even 45 minutes.

Emergencies are always emergencies. They will come first, but usually you can take those dozens of things and set them off to the side as later "to dos".

So applying all of these theories, traits, and trains of thought to programming, I believe I can become much more accomplished in self studying.

For example, last night I finished writing some JavaScript code that made a form unable to be submitted without being filled out properly.

I have touched this form three times. The first time I actually made it. The second time I added a utility file to it to shorten some parts of the code. Well when I added the utilities file it wasn't working. Almost as if the Submit button wasn't firing.

Dropping in console.log () everywhere allowed me to see where my program was dieing off and hone in on it. I eventually got it working and fixed it.

Knowing that when I added the code so it couldn't be submitted without being filled out had worked, I was tempted to move on. I had looked at the code before to fix it and gave up.

I was approaching that time line of the night where I was really wanting to exercise, shower, eat, and go to bed.

I thought about self progression and how me taking the time to figure it out would be as valuable as writing the original code. I told myself that I could fix this in 30 minutes. I did not allow myself more time, and was determined not to give up again.

Low and behold, I fixed it inside of my 30 minutes. It worked and I got the end result I wanted, being able to move on with my night, and a feeling of self accomplishment. Small win, however reaffirms things you may be too timid to truthfully consider.

My main point here is set goals and deadlines for yourself. Be honest with yourself. You know you only have 30 minutes, so do it in 30 minutes! 30 minutes of work should take 30 minutes of productivity, not an hour.

I cannot end without suggesting something to help you. There are loads of ways to stick to deadlines, and motivation is needed for those. I came across this book and thought it was pretty cool. Some of the quotes are thought provoking that leave you lingering all day in a pool of wonder and excitement. These quotes are fun to share with others, and can keep you going when you are unsure of how to proceed. If you decide to pick it up, I hope you do as I did and pass it on to someone else who could use it in their life as well.