Hacking Time -- A personal journey through the Pareto Principle and Parkinson's Law

Have you ever wished there was more time in the day?  I know I have.

It can be argued that time is our most precious commodity, and our greatest gift.  Time is elusive, mysterious, and untouchable.  The time it takes to read this sentence is something you can never get back, and although the brightest minds in the world struggle to define what exactly time is, and if it even exists, one thing is certain.

There never seems to be enough of it. 

I'll admit it, I'm slightly obsessed with time.  I want time to be infinite.  I want to live forever.

Through this obsession, many hours of time that I will never get back have been spent on learning what exactly it is, how to waste less of it, create more of it, and essentially, have control over it.  

Time is Elastic

One of the most amazing things about time, is that it's elastic.  It constricts and expands depending on the day, circumstances, distractions, and events.  Remember that time you waited until the last minute to finish a project or assignment, and magically pulled it off?  Or that time you had all day long to finish one simple task and barely got it done?  What we achieve is rarely a product of time itself, but instead a product of our motivation and priorities.  This gives a real world example of the following...

Parkinson's Law

Is a famous, and succinct adage that states: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for it's completion". 

Basically that means that few of us are as efficient and productive as we can be on a day to day basis.  There's probably a lot of physics and psychology that play into this phenomenon which is beyond the scope of this post, so I will try to summarize it like this:  The less time you give yourself to complete a task, the more productive you will be.  Set a deadline and make it optimistic.  If you think something will take an hour to complete, give yourself 30 minutes.  You'll be surprised how focused, motivated, and efficient you'll become.

Pareto Principle - aka The 80/20 rule of Time and Life Management

Another eye opening idea that changed how I live, and occupy my time is called the Pareto principle.  It's definition is a little harder to nail down, but for the purpose of this blog post, it basically says that: " 80% of your results come from 20% of the time you invest".

This principle can be applied to just about anything.  

For example, 80% of your profit on Steem probably comes from 20% of your upvotes. 

Or 80% of your stress in life probably comes from 20% of the people in it.

The possibilities go on and on... but to make it work for you, and your life the bottom line is this:  Prioritize and focus on the most important things that need to be completed on that day, and in that moment.  

I hope you enjoyed this post and some of my thoughts and experiences with time.  It's a mystery that fascinates me, and one I will talk about in even more depth in the future.  Any comments and additional insight are welcome, as I'm always trying to expand my knowledge and expertise.  Please follow me if you are interested in reading more in future posts.

Image Sources:

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