Parkinson’s Law says that an activity will take all the time that you allot to it. If you have a report to write and you think it will take two days then you’re right – it will take two days. If however you get a sudden phone call from the boss who says that he needs it by the end of today – hey presto – magically you get it done today.

You can’t defeat this law – but you can play it to your advantage. Use Parkinson’s law to decide how long you want a specific activity to take. Decide that you want to finish preparing course material by the end of the day. Decide that you will catch up on some emails by lunchtime. Decide that you will return five phone calls between now and your next meeting.

In making the decision you are thinking about what you need to get done, stating an intention and then focussing your mind on getting it done. This means that you are more likely to be successful at completing the task or tasks within the given timeframe than if you hadn’t made the decision and just allowed yourself to drift through the day.