According to Parkinson's law, work takes. Neprizavit, or Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's law, or the growing pyramid

Parkinson's law states that a particular job or task increases in volume to fill the amount of time allotted to it.

Parkinson's laws contain factors that generally influence:

the existence of any person;
financial success;
development of human relations;
realization of human mental and creative potential.

60 years have passed, but Parkinson's laws have not lost their relevance in work. Using Parkinson's laws as a basis, you can develop your own productivity methods.

Parkinson's laws summary

1. Parkinson's first law
“The amount of work will increase to fill the available time for this task.”

While in the bureaucratic sphere, Parkinson found that the number of workers increases by 5-7% every year with the same workload.

There are two driving forces (features) in Parkinson's 1st law:

managerial officials fundamentally increase the number of subordinates;
create work for managers.

In modern times, when one’s own business is developing, entrepreneurial activity is one’s own business, and Parkinson’s first law is especially in demand. To become successful, you need to work effectively and perform effective actions. The motto should be: “The work must be completed in the time allotted for it.”

Accordingly, you set this time yourself, depending on the complexity of the upcoming task. If a job can be done in an hour, don't plan to complete it in two hours.

Examples:

A student is preparing for an exam or writing a thesis and deliberately postpones the deadline, i.e., he is stalling for time, but he knows perfectly well that there will be no postponement. Then he hurries up and completes it in a short time.
Working in a budget organization: the employee knows that finishing a task early will lead to the start of the next one. The employee receives a salary and works according to the work schedule. He doesn't have to strain at all.

2. Parkinson's second law
“Expenditures are proportional to income.” If your income increases, then you can increase your expenses. As a rule, as income increases, taxes inevitably increase, which indicates an improvement in well-being and an increase in the standard of living of the population.

3. Parkinson's Third Law
Any development in life leads to a certain complexity.

S. Parkinson argues that this is not bad, because a person strives to become above these laws, and to always be a “winner”. This law applies to any sphere of human activity. It should be remembered that any life growth must come to perfection. With increasing growth, the problem of a new direction and level arises.

Example:
The entrepreneur worked alone and managed his income and expenses independently. IN Pension Fund and paid taxes only for himself. But the time has come to expand: he invited hired workers. Now the concern has increased, the level of complexity has grown in parallel with the growth of income and business: employees need to be paid salaries, social benefits. package, provide vacation, pay taxes for them.

Parkinson's laws are additional

In the process of work, in addition to the 3 main ones, new laws appeared:

Delays- This is a proven and reliable form of refusal - in the form of postponing or delaying matters.
Thousands- organization, the company becomes independent and does not need contacts with the external environment if its number has reached 1000 people.
Phone— the effectiveness of telephone conversations is inversely proportional to the time spent.
Scientific studies— increased funding for scientific research leads to successful completion. Lack of finance turns into impracticability of further studies.
Computer data. The media is filled with data so that there are no empty spaces. The conditions of the latest techniques and their implementation make it possible to increase memory and the number of media.
Mrs Parkinson. S. Parkinson's wife added her own law. “Warmth, created from household chores, grows and saturates loved ones. It is transmitted only to cold-blooded people.”

History of the creation of Parkinson's laws

Cyril Parkinson was a playwright, historian, journalist, and writer.
He worked in the British civil service, and observed the work of the mechanism of bureaucracy, which was based on the principle of “work more without improving quality.”

After lengthy observations and reflections, he published a book
“Parkinson's Law” on the topic of “patterns in the life of society” has become famous in the modern world.

Save money based on Parkinson's 2nd law

Submits to the material prosperity of a person, gaining monetary freedom of action.

Summary of tips:

Keep track of your expenses. Especially when it rises wage. A person spends much more money. -Get rid of liabilities. They take the funds.
For example: a mortgage, a loan - all this is a “debt hole” for a long period.
Accumulate assets. They generate additional income.
Example: apartment, cottage, garage - i.e. real estate. They can be rented out or sold if necessary.
Don't take on debt. If you have purchased, try to reset them quickly. You will be happy and free.
Save your capital. You will gain confidence in yourself for tomorrow's future. Contribute 5-10% of your income to your savings book every month. Having accumulated a decent amount, you can invest in a profitable enterprise or business.
Keep track of money spent. Write down what you spent your money on. You may have spent on unnecessary things that you could do without.
Take cues from rich people. They have no debts, but have decent capital, and when income significantly exceeds natural expenses. An apartment, a car, or a dacha are considered essential necessities.
Beware of financial collapse. Take as a basis, save half or 30% of your earnings. If you spend as much as you earn, you will face financial ruin.

Use Parkinson's Laws every day: to improve business, financial, correct literacy, as well as eliminate the reasons for achieving success in life.

You can live, go to work, create large companies or conduct small trade without knowing what Parkinson's laws are, but this does not mean that they do not work at this very time. They are universal and relate to everything in life - from organizing bureaucracies to tax tricks, saving energy and creating strong family or a successful business.

They were formulated by Cyril Parkinson. Parkinson's laws became a bestseller in the middle of the 20th century, but seem to be relevant at all times and in all countries.

Biography of Cyril Parkinson

Cyril Norton Parkinson was born into a creative family, where his father was an artist and his mother was a music teacher. This happened on July 30, 1909. Having received his education at the school of St. Peter's in Yorkshire, he majored in history at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he received his MA in 1932.

In 1935, he received a doctorate in philosophy with a thesis on England's trade in the eastern seas in 1803-1910. He travels a lot, and from 1938 to 1940 he is engaged in teaching.

From 1940 to 1945 he served in the military, and after demobilization he became a history teacher at the University of Liverpool. From 1950 to 1958, Cyril held a professorship in Malayan. During the same period, he wrote the book “Parkinson's Laws,” which was originally a series of satirical articles for the Economist magazine, which were later included in the book itself.

In 1960, Cyril Parkinson retired, settled on one of them and devoted his free time to writing novels, plays, management, and painting. In 1993, on March 9, Cyril Parkinson died in Canterbury.

Parkinson's I law

Parkinson's first law is suitable for people who want to be effective and manage to do as many effective actions as possible, especially when it comes to developing their own business.

It goes like this: “Work takes up the time allotted for it.” It can be interpreted from the perspective of both employed people and those who are building their own business or pursuing their favorite hobby. Depending on the field of human activity, it has different approaches for implementation.

The first law, from the perspective of an employee or bureaucrat, is interpreted in such a way that the allotted time for completing a task will take exactly this time and will correspond to the complexity that fits within this time frame.

This means that if a task can be done in 2-3 hours, and 2-3 days are allocated for its completion, then it will become so complicated that it will be completed within this time frame.

The same task, for which only 2 hours of work were allocated, will be simplified enough to be completed on time. The law has the following conclusion: if you allocate exactly as much time to each task as is actually required to complete it, then it will always be completed on time.

The negative side of the first law only works for those who are not used to setting real deadlines and do not even try to analyze how long it will take to complete this or that task. The result is constant rush jobs or procrastination of simple and quickly completed tasks.

The application of the law of personal efficiency for an employee is to do the work quickly, and devote the remaining working time to what you like, pretending to be very busy.

Parkinson's second law

Parkinson's laws concern not only the growth of the bureaucracy, but also the financial side of every person's life. Parkinson's second law is: "Expenditure tends to equal income."

This law shows: how quickly a person’s income grows, the payment of his taxes increases. The bureaucratic tax system is designed so that a person, even increasing his earnings many times over, remains at the same financial level as before the increase in income.

Parkinson's 3rd law

Parkinson's third law is: "Growth leads to complexity, and complexity leads to the end of the road." This applies to all areas of human life when they are in the development stage.

As soon as growth begins in any area, problems of a new level always follow. For example, a person opened his own small business in which he worked himself. At the same time, the level of income and expenses concerns only himself, as well as the relationship with the tax inspector.

Things went uphill, he began to expand his production and hired workers. The level of complexity has increased in proportion to the growth of the business. Workers need to be paid, provided social package, give a vacation, report to a different interest rate.

Parkinson's laws are always proven by life itself. The entrepreneur's small business became a financial empire, along with which problems grew - the board of directors, the board of shareholders, the workers' union, social payments, a bloated bureaucracy and much more.

There are many examples when giant corporations ceased to exist after their maximum expansion and complexity of the management structure.

Every company, like every entrepreneur, should know that there will definitely be a decline after great growth. This is normal, you just need to be prepared for it. Find alternative methods of work, create additional sources of income or something else.

Law of bureaucracy

Parkinson's laws regarding the bureaucracy are not in doubt and do not require proof. An example of this is the organization of various legislative cabinets in any country in the world.

According to the author, a cabinet consisting of 5 members is considered the most effective, since they are easy to gather together, four of them know exactly what they are doing, and one may not know anything, so he is suitable for the role of chairman.

But as history shows, in each individual country a small cabinet was created each time, but after a year or two it grew, then another and another, until it collapsed, and everything started all over again.

This is especially significant in the example of the English one, which in its original form around 1600 had 20 members, which gradually led to 850 in 1952. Each time, small “sub-offices”, secret offices, councils and similar bureaucratic structures were organized inside the office.

Parkinson's laws of bureaucracy look like some kind of formula for identifying the coefficient of uselessness of the bureaucracy.

Parkinson's Laws for Women

Mrs. Parkinson's laws deal with more mundane topics such as romance and marriage, driving a car and creating a shared family home.

The book has nothing to do with the author’s wife, which he warns readers about in the preface to it. Written with a great sense of humor, in the main the book is somewhat sad - people are so busy with materialism and arranging their lives that they have little understanding of how to actually raise children and on what foundations a strong marriage is created and maintained.

Parkinson's laws for women also apply to moments when women are in a stressful situation, and the intensity of their passions is aimed at destroying everything that gets in their way.

The first law states that the warmth of an object busy with everyday household chores gradually increases until it is “splashed out” on another, more cold-blooded subject.

The second law says that you cannot run headlong to the phone if very important work is being done at that moment.

The third law is advice to never make decisions until the intensity of passions has cooled down and the mind can again perceive reality sensibly.

Parkinson and the stock market

Parkinson's Laws in the stock market relate primarily to habitual amounts and sound like this: “The time spent discussing an item is inversely proportional to the amount in question.” The law is based on the division of people on the planet into 2 types: those who have a million, and those who do not.

Millionaires are used to big numbers, but in the world there is much more more people, which have thousands. Such people usually make up various financial committees, which, when considering an application for a $100 project, will demand a certificate for every cent spent and challenge the legality of their use. They can allocate millions to other projects without even arguing until they are hoarse about the feasibility of these investments.

Parkinson's books do not reveal the "secrets" of how to build a successful business or create a billion-dollar corporation. They are aimed at explaining how a business should not be built.

If you take the book "Parkinson's Law", summary which concerns issues of personal effectiveness and proper distribution of human resources, one of its important sections is 100 tips for entrepreneurs.

Some of these tips focus on the human communication skills on which any business is based. There are also recommendations on how to be an effective leader for others and for yourself. If you apply them in practice, then any business will quickly turn into a profitable business.

Practical application of laws

Although Cyril Parkinson wrote his laws in a humorous and ironic form, they contain serious factors influencing human life, the development of personal relationships, financial success and the realization of people’s creative and mental potential.

They were relevant in the 60s of the last century, and will be applicable in the 21st century. Since then, technology has improved, but the psychology of the employee, bureaucrat or entrepreneur has remained the same. Using Parkinson's laws, you can achieve results in any business much faster.

Hello, dear readers and blog guests! Now the popularity of S. Parkinson's laws has become less popular. They were widely known in the mid-20th century, but have not lost their relevance to this day. The laws formulated by him primarily concern such areas as trade, economics and bureaucracy.

The book written by this English author was extremely popular not only in his own country, but also far abroad. These laws are not mere theory, but the result of practical observations and experience of the author. During his long and eventful life, S. Parkinson traveled a lot, was engaged in writing and scientific activities. Serving in the army for five years allowed him to experience first-hand what bureaucracy was like. At the end of his life, he settled on one of the islands in Normandy, and devoted himself entirely to creative activity.

Parkinson's first law

Its essence lies in the fact that the work takes the amount of time allotted for its completion. So, for example, if on simple work five hours are allotted, which is clearly a lot; a person will still do it for so long, due to the complexity of the work. If the work is complex and there is very little time, then the individual will try to do everything in a simple way. Usually, it is easier to complicate than to simplify.

This law can be viewed from different perspectives. It will operate in different ways for an entrepreneur, an employee, and an individual engaged in a favorite hobby.

For an entrepreneur, time is very valuable because it is converted into money. And the more tasks he manages to complete in a short period of time, the greater his income will be. As a rule, it is precisely such people who give birth to all sorts of innovations that significantly simplify human work. For example, the invention and widespread implementation of computer technology, robotization. Now a person can do as much in a day as before in a month. And this increases GDP, wages and the standard of living of people in general. Thus, the main task of an entrepreneur is to compress time and spend as little time as possible on any work.

From an employee's perspective, time is not a valuable resource. Most often they work according to the principle “the soldier is sleeping - the service is in progress.” If the employer gave them, for example, 3 hours to complete a simple task, then they will do it for that long.

In this case, the employee will either greatly complicate simple work, or quickly do everything and mind his own business. This type of work is inherent in office workers (“plankton”), who exist according to the principle “the day has passed and okay.”

If a person is doing what he loves, then time does not matter much to him, since a creative process of self-expression is carried out, not aimed at making money. In this case, it is not the time that is important, but the result. Unlike employees, this is a godsend for an entrepreneur. They can move mountains for an idea and significantly enrich themselves and their owner.

The main conclusion from this law is that if you devote equal periods of time to doing work every day, then the job will always be completed on time. It may not work for those individuals who cannot rationally plan their work day. This leads to labor crunches and missed deadlines.

Parkinson's second law

This law concerns a person's financial well-being. Its meaning is that “expenses are trying to catch up with income.” No matter how a person’s income increases, the tax system clearly ensures that it continues to remain the same material level with an increase in cash receipts.

Some striking examples include luxury taxes, increases in pension and other contributions, tax rates as a percentage, etc. But this does not mean that you need to give up and not strive for anything, because everything will be taken away anyway.

There is some rationality in this law, since it has the power of deterrence in relation to the strong property stratification between rich and poor. Because it is through taxes that various social and charitable programs for the poor can exist.

Often wealthy people engage in, i.e. help income match expenses. This phenomenon has a psychological background, when a person has almost everything, he stops thinking about the material and thinks about the spiritual.

Parkinson's Third Law

This law is often applied in practice. It says: “Growth leads to complications, and this leads to the end of the road.” Any, even the largest corporation will collapse after some time. You just need to be prepared for this and look for other ways of development. Life comes in waves, with ups followed by downs, downs with ups, and so on.

This process can be well illustrated by the example of an ordinary entrepreneur. When he just starts his business, he does everything himself, production, doing accounting calculations and selling products. If things improve, then an expansion of the workforce will be required, i.e. complication will occur. An entrepreneur will have to be responsible not only for himself, but also for the people he hires, paying them wages and benefits.

The business can then move to new level corporations. Here the structure will become even more complicated; it will be necessary to organize a trade union, a board of directors and shareholders, and maintain a huge bureaucratic apparatus.

Often, it is the processes of enterprise centralization that contribute to strong bureaucratization at the head office and in the field. The desire, therefore, to better control and coordinate the situation only aggravates the matter. Since in this case, there is a chance to “switch the arrows” to another employee.

Law on Bureaucracy

S. Parkinson deduced this law based on observations of the work of the cabinet of officials in various countries. Everywhere the process of its functioning and further decay was similar. He believed that five people were enough for the optimal functioning of the cabinet of officials. Of these, four will be professionals in their field, and one, who doesn’t know much about anything, will be the chairman.

In practice, the number of people will increase. This will lead to a “smearing” of the chain of command and responsibilities between people. In such a large office, its own “subgroups of interests” are formed, and anarchy arises, which leads to its disintegration and liquidation.

This suggests that, in essence, a large bureaucratic apparatus is useless; it leads to additional delays and slowdown of work processes. S. Parkinson developed a special formula that allows you to calculate the optimal number of people for a bureaucratic unit. And also determine the maximum number of people after which its self-destruction occurs.

The increase in the number of officials occurs due to other organizations lobbying their interests in a particular company. Everyone strives to introduce “their” person into the bureaucratic office and gain a certain share of influence.

Over time, the staff swells to incredible sizes and ceases to function normally. Only third-party companies do not see this and do not understand that this is of little use.

One of the striking examples in this case is the House of Lords in England, the staff of which, over the entire period of its existence, has increased from 20 to 850 people.

Most often, it is at the last stage that a decline occurs, leading to the destruction of the organization. A large bureaucratic apparatus leads to the fact that people stop working and shift responsibility to each other. There is confusion and slowdown in the work process.

Women's law

It is also called Mrs. Parkinson's law, but it has nothing to do with her. In general, it can be defined as a general law for all women. The author tells in it that sometimes we are too busy with material accumulations, not understanding how to properly raise children and arrange a family home.

Parents should first of all care not about ensuring that their child has a new iPhone, a comfortable room and much more, but about his spiritual development. It is necessary to communicate with children, spend more time together, and teach something by personal example. Therefore, young people are gradually turning into consumers who find it difficult to build relationships and take serious life decisions.

S. Parkinson also talks about the accumulation of energy in a woman, which periodically “spills out” on all household members. You should not be distracted by trifles if you are performing an important task. This can lead to errors and increased execution time.

A woman is designed in such a way that she needs to periodically give her energy to someone or something. When it stagnates, a feeling of irritation and a sense of uselessness of one’s own existence arises. The main essence of feminine energy is to help and stimulate a man to achieve his goals.

And lastly, this statement applies not only to women, but also to men. You should not do anything out of the blue; wait until the heat passes. This way you can avoid many rash decisions and stupid actions, which will then be difficult to correct.

Parkinson's Law in Finance

This characteristic feature has been noticed in the mentality of people in many countries around the world. For some reason, it is much easier for a manager to agree to finance a million-dollar project than to allow him to buy a chair for his office for 1,000 rubles. In the second case, the employee will be tormented with exculpatory notes about why he needs it, whether it will affect labor productivity, whether it will spoil the climate in the office, etc.

The basis of this law is the division of people into. For those who have a lot of money and those who have little. Its essence can be formulated as follows: “the time spent discussing the issue is inversely proportional to the amount of cash subsidies.”

A clear effect of this law can be observed in the construction industry. When there is a big gap between the modeled project and its implementation in life.

From a psychological point of view, this phenomenon can be explained by the “temptingness of prospects.” It is difficult for a person to understand and predict the results of a potentially profitable project, where the main word is “profit”. And saving on little things psychologically convinces him that he is running his business prudently and monitoring financial flows.

Parkinson makes no recommendations in his book regarding this, but it contains a lot useful tips about how not to build a business. You can learn a lot from the works of this author. useful information about communication skills with people, management methods and much more, without which it is difficult to build a profitable business.

I hope you found the article useful and interesting. What do you think about Parkinson’s laws, do you share his opinion?

Great minds and leaders, with the help of their achievements, have already proven hundreds of times that everything in the world happens as it should: success comes only to the most gifted and purposeful people, and high positions go to only the best of them. However, in 1955, a journalist, writer, historian and just a lover of thinking about life - Cyril Northcote Parkinson - published unexpected conclusions about the patterns in which our lives flow in The Economist. He compiled them based on observations obtained while working in government agencies in Britain. The journalist’s findings were called “Parkinson’s Laws” and made him famous throughout the world. Since the works of the Briton have not yet lost their topicality and relevance, it would be useful to get to know them better, which is what we will do in this article.

Biography of Cyril Parkinson

Before we consider the achievements of the journalist and writer, let’s briefly look at his biography. Parkinson was born on July 30, 1909, into a family creative people. His father was an artist, and his mother taught music. Having received secondary education at the Yorkshire school of St. Peter, Cyril entered Cambridge College in the history department. In 1932 he graduated with a master's degree.

In 1935, Parkinson defended his dissertation on England's trade in the eastern seas in the 19th century and received a Ph.D. Cyril traveled a lot. In 1938, he began teaching, but in 1940 he was forced to go into military service. Returning in 1945, Parkinson began teaching history at the University of Liverpool. Between 1950 and 1958, the man was a professor at the University of Malaya in Singapore. It was during this period that he formulated the so-called Parkinson's laws. A book with their collection was published a little later. Initially, laws were published in the form of articles in an economic journal.

In 1960, the journalist retired, settled on Channel Island and took up writing. He wrote novels, plays, and books on business, management, painting, and sailing. As you can see, the writer had a broad outlook and a rich set of skills. Died March 9, 1993.

At one time, Parkinson's work was perceived as ridicule that debunked established myths about justice and the rule of reason. They told humanity about the true state of affairs regarding careers, power and the bureaucracy. It is noteworthy that these laws contain no information that would surprise the average person. However, people very rarely think about the essence of trivial things until someone else points them out. Thus, Parkinson's Laws provide a clear-eyed look at the patterns of financial literacy, business, and the reasons why many of us never achieve success. So let's take a closer look at them.

First Law

Parkinson's first law is worth paying attention to people who strive to increase their efficiency and try to do as much as possible in a limited period of time. It sounds very simple: “The work takes exactly as much time as is allotted for it.” Here, as an example, we can recall how students write a diploma. For some it takes a whole semester, for others it takes just a few sleepless days. An important aspect in this case is not only speed, but also complexity, as well as quality of work. Anyone who drags out a task over a long period unwittingly complicates it and performs many unnecessary actions. Well, those who are forced to invest in a short timeframe have to cut off everything unnecessary without sacrificing quality.

The first law for bureaucrats

From the perspective of a bureaucrat or employee, this law means that the time allotted for completing a task will correspond to the complexity that falls within that time frame. Thus, if you allocate 2-3 days to complete a task that can be solved in a couple of hours, it will be so complicated that the employee will hardly invest in 3 days. Conversely, if you give a person two hours to complete a job that could be done all day, he will simplify it to the level that allows him to invest in the given time frame.

Why are inflated deadlines harmful to an organization? It's all about human laziness and dislike for their work, which most employees suffer from. If a person is paid for the hours spent at work, and not for the amount of work done, then he will never be ahead of the deadlines set by management.

Thus, Parkinson’s first law, a summary of which is outlined above, has a conclusion: in order for the work to always be completed on time and of high quality, it is worth devoting exactly as much time to its completion as is actually required.

Of course, when talking about deadlines aimed at solving any problems, you need to rely on the person’s personal qualities and his hard work. For those who are unable to evaluate and manage their time, simple tasks take much longer than necessary.

Analyzing the work of the bureaucracy and some organizations, Parkinson noticed that their teams were constantly growing. On average, the increase is 6% per year. It is noteworthy that this process does not at all affect the volume of work performed and its quality.

Second Law

Parkinson's second law more globally affects the financial activities of every person. Its essence is that expenses always increase as income increases. On the one hand, this means that a person’s needs will always increase as monetary profits increase. On the other hand, this law marks the inevitable increase in taxes, which necessarily occurs as a reaction of the state to an increase in the standard of living of citizens.

Third Law

Parkinson's third law concerns problems solved as we develop financially. It sounds like this: “Development leads to complication, and complication leads to the end.” This pattern applies to any human activity that has development potential. The essence of the law is simple: as soon as we grow in one endeavor or another, problems of a new level open up before us. Thus, problems are a constant companion of a developing person. And only those who learn to enjoy solving them will be able to exceed their wildest expectations.

To understand how Parkinson’s third law, a brief summary of which we already know, works, let’s consider it from a business point of view. When a person starts his own business, he, as a rule, does everything himself at first. Consequently, income, expenses and relationships with the tax service concern only him. When a business begins to grow, the workload increases and it has to attract employees. Workers need to be paid, provided with comfortable working conditions, a social package and vacation. In addition, you need to report for each of them to the tax service. When a small business grows into a large one, problems arise such as board of directors, social benefits, unions, bloated bureaucracy, huge tax deductions and much more. There are many cases in business history where corporations close at the peak of their development. This is Parkinson’s third law, which, as you can see from the example, is taken from life.

A little about bureaucracy

The journalist’s next work concerns such a painful phenomenon as bureaucracy. Parkinson's law on bureaucracy is beyond doubt and does not need proof, since its reliability can be observed in the legislative offices of any country in the world. Parkinson believes that an office with 5 people works most efficiently. It is this number of people that is most favorable for fruitful work. At the same time, four may know their business perfectly, and the fifth may be completely incompetent - he plays the role of chairman.

As history shows, in almost every state a small cabinet was created, which grew steadily over the years and eventually collapsed. With the growth of this apparatus, secret rooms, “sub-offices”, councils and other bureaucratic departments are formed in it, which ultimately leads to inconsistency and destruction. We can say that the law on bureaucracy is a kind of formula for determining the coefficient of uselessness of the bureaucratic apparatus.

Other laws

In addition to the four laws discussed above, Parkinson is also credited with other, less resonant developments. Let's take a quick look at them.

Law of Delay. Means that delay and delay in response are the most reliable form of refusal.

Law of a thousand. According to this judgment, any organization whose number has reached a thousand people can be self-sufficient and not need contact with the outside world.

Telephone Law. It says that the shorter the conversation, the more effective it is.

Law of Scientific Research. A paradoxical proposition that suggests that all successful scientific research entails serious funding, which ultimately causes it to stop.

Law of Information. This law concerns computer technology. He says that the amount of data on the medium is growing until it is filled to capacity. And as storage capacity increases, new technologies arise that require even more memory.

Mrs Parkinson's Law

How to achieve financial well-being?

Majority ordinary people in their lives they encounter Parkinson’s second law, which is directly related to financial well-being. Let's look at what experts (including Parkinson himself) advise doing to protect yourself from collapse and constant lack of funds.

So, the main tips:

You should always control your expenses. This is especially important if income grows and there is a desire to spend more than necessary.
We need to get rid of liabilities. Liabilities are everything that takes money without bringing anything in return. A simple example is a loan. At first glance, there is nothing wrong with it, but in practice, loans can lead a person to a debt trap.
You need to strive to acquire assets that can generate income and do not depreciate. A striking example is real estate that can be rented out or, in extreme cases, sold for good money.
You need to get rid of debt obligations without delay.
You should always try to create your capital. It is the key to restful sleep and confidence in the future.
To always have money, you need to eliminate truly unnecessary purchases. Modern man does a lot of these things.
A rich person is one whose income exceeds his expenses. And someone who simply has a lot of expensive things is not always really rich.
Ideally, you need to spend up to 50% of your earnings per month, and save and multiply the rest.

Conclusion

Today we learned what the notorious Parkinson's laws are. As you can see, they are all quite simple to understand, but, as practice shows, they are difficult to implement. This is why Parkinson's work has become so famous. But initially they were perceived simply as sharp ridicule.

How does Parkinson's law work?

Most of us have probably noticed more than once that many personal or work tasks that had an impressive deadline, much exceeding the time actually needed, were completed exactly on time or even late. In the “extreme” case, if the deadline was very far away and it was simply impossible to be late, the work still took much more pure time than it should have.

This phenomenon is explained by various reasons. Someone, taking advantage of the excess time, trying to bring things to absolute perfection, redoing, finishing, and then redoing what was completed. Somebody is often distracted, works more slowly, or delays starting work, knowing that there is still a long time before the deadline (that is, in fact, in such cases we can talk about turning on the procrastination mechanism). Procrastination can also arise for another reason: if we know that, having completed the first task, we will have to take on the next one, which we absolutely do not want to do, etc.

Regardless of the specific reasons, we get that the work seems to have been completed, but in a significantly larger amount of time, which went to no one knows where. Sound familiar? If yes, then we have good news - this law can be used to your advantage.

Putting Parkinson's Law into Practice

The main principle is to remember S.P. Parkinson’s law more often when starting any task or making a plan for the day. If the work takes up the entire allotted time, spend as much time on it as required (with a small margin). Of course, this only applies
for those tasks that you are familiar with and you can more or less accurately calculate the time required for them.

Wherein It is not recommended to move the deadline(for example, “I have to submit a report at 18:00, but I will submit it at 13:00”). In most cases, this will not work, since you will know that the actual due date is not soon. A more efficient way is reduce the time it takes to complete a task by doing something useful before it. Let's look at a specific example of how to use S. P. Parkinson's empirical law in practice. Let's say you have two tasks (A and B) that typically take one hour (A) and two hours (B) to complete. At the same time, for the first task (A) you have a clear deadline, which will occur in 4 hours, and B must be completed simply today.

It would seem that the logical sequence of actions is to do task A in advance, submit it in an hour, and then move on to task B, and after three hours enjoy life. However, according to Parkinson’s law, task A will take all 4 hours available, and the remaining time until the evening or even night will be spent on task B. Thanks to procrastination, many more tasks can be completed in parallel with both tasks, and it’s good if they are useful . However, this does not work out for everyone.

Therefore, it would be more effective to do it differently: first start task B, setting yourself a deadline, after which you in any case move on to task A so as not to be late. Thus, we set a more specific deadline for the second task and narrow the time for completion of the first, which increases efficiency for both. In this situation, it is much easier to do everything in the allotted 4 hours. At the same time, even if you do not complete task B before moving on to task A, you will set yourself one or another backlog, and will not waste time on something else (probably not entirely useful).

Parkinson's law and some other empirical laws

Of course, you need to understand that Parkinson’s law is not a panacea; besides, there are other empirical laws, the effect of which is also worth taking into account. Let us remember, for example, Murphy's law (law of meanness): if trouble can happen, it will happen. Therefore, it is very important leave yourself a certain time gap and at least at the initial stage of applying Parkinson's law, do not experiment with tasks of increased importance.

Remember that most people tend to overestimate their abilities and believe that they can complete a job in less time than it actually takes. Therefore, before you severely limit yourself to a deadline, double-check that you have calculated everything correctly. Time pressure only improves efficiency when we can work at a comfortable pace (but still have to be focused).

We would also like to remind you about Pareto's law: “20% of efforts bring 80% of success”. As with Parkinson's law, the ratio of 20 to 80, derived by the Italian sociologist and economist, also applies to other areas of life, for example, 20% of the time is spent on 80% of tasks, etc. When drawing up a plan for the day and assigning priorities, we recommend keeping this principle in mind.