The Psychology of Time & Deadlines
People talk about saving time, but it is impossible to save time.
You can save and stockpile money, but you can’t save and stockpile time. We all have the exact same amount, and we all spend it at the exact same rate: 60 seconds every minute, 60 minutes every hour, 24 hours every day, and seven days every week.
We cannot manage time. We can only manage ourselves in the time we have.
⏳ The Parkinson's Trap
Have you already noticed this yourself?
Over and over again, studies have given merit to Parkinson’s Law—the adage first coined by C. Northcote Parkinson in 1955.
"Work expands so as to fill the time which is available for its completion."
This is due to procrastination and the undue time and attention given to trivial things.
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1
Students will often take as long to finish an assignment as they’re given. Whether they have a week, a month, or a whole semester, they will likely finish it right before the deadline.
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2
That project that has to get finished before you go on holiday... it’s amazing how quickly it gets finished the day before you pack your bags.
🗺️ Without a Plan, It's Called Wandering Aimlessly
Without a plan, everything looks important. You waste time and energy chasing opportunities that don't serve your actual goal.
Without a plan, you lack:
Direction
Focus
Measurement
A plan focuses your energies in the right direction and gives you the confidence that you can actually execute.
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
... and a plan without action is just a daydream.
⚡ Once You Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan
The first step is to plan what you will do. But then you’ve got to get to work.
How long will it take?
To defeat Parkinson's Law, you must change how you set constraints.
Give yourself a deadline that is not determined by how much time you have, but by how long it should take.
This changes the entire psychological game. You move from expanding your effort to fit a bloated timeline, to executing efficiently against a strict, self-imposed constraint.
Because you can't save time—but you can definitely steal it back.