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Parkinson’s law is an axiom that states, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” It describes how tasks often take longer simply because more time is allowed, which can lead to procrastination and unnecessary stress.

Parkinson’s law is not a scientific principle. Instead, it is an observation of a phenomenon many people experience. It can explain the expansion of organizations or bureaucracies. However, it can also be a helpful way to think about other types of work, including personal productivity.

How Parkinson’s Law Explains Procrastination

The adage was named for Cyril Northcote Parkinson, who first described the phenomenon in a 1955 humor essay published in “The Economist.” Parkinson’s law states that the more time a task is allotted for completion, the more complex it tends to become.

Parkinson’s law can also lead people to procrastinate, leaving tasks until right before they are due. You might initially feel relieved that you have plenty of time to finish a project, only to put it off as long as possible.

When you find yourself finishing the task, you might feel a sense of relief but also wonder why the project became so much more of a burden in your mind than it was in real life. The “extra time” that the task requires often isn’t related to the task itself—it’s mental stress caused by worrying about getting it done.

Why We Take Longer When We Have More Time

One reason why this phenomenon happens lies in how people tend to approach tasks. Research indicates that when people start a new project, they tend to focus on how much time they have available to do it instead of how much time the task would take to complete.

This approach naturally means that tasks become more time-consuming and onerous than they likely are. By focusing on how much time we have to do something, we assume that the task will require that much time.

In Parkinson’s original example, a woman’s sole task for the day was to mail a postcard. Because she had the entire day to complete the simple task, the amount of work and time required expanded to fill the whole day.

The fictional woman spends a half-hour searching for her reading glasses. Writing the postcard takes another two hours. More time is spent finding a stamp, writing the address, and walking the postcard to the post office. 

Some researchers have proposed that Parkinson’s law can also apply to how fast and how much people benefit from psychotherapy. For example, brief psychotherapies that establish a set completion date might result in the “work” expanding to fill the available time.

How to Stop Time From Slipping Away

Parkinson’s law isn’t a magic formula or a fixed rule. But it is an observation you can use to help you become more productive. Some strategies that can help you make the most of your time without falling victim to Parkinson’s law include:

• Avoid procrastination: When you have a lot of time to complete a task, it’s easy to push it off until later. But if you plan your time carefully and set deadlines for yourself, you can overcome procrastination.
• Write down your goals: Whatever your goal happens to be, write it down. Track your progress by regularly checking in and noting the progress you’ve made, what still needs to be done, and whether your final goal has changed at all throughout the project. This type of reflective goal-tracking helps keep you accountable but can also help you better visualize your progress, your remaining work, and whether or not the project appears more daunting than it really is.
• Set realistic deadlines: Think about how long a task will take. While this might not always be clear, consider past experiences as a guide. Instead of focusing on when the task must be done, think about how soon you can get it done and out of your way. When you have a clear understanding of how long a task should take, you can avoid the tendency to expand the work to fill the time you have available.
• Prioritize your tasks: If you have a lot of tasks to complete, it’s important to prioritize them. By identifying which tasks are most important, you can ensure that you focus on them first and not get bogged down by less important tasks.
• Use a timer: One effective way to avoid Parkinson’s law is to use a timer. When you know that you only have a certain amount of time to complete a task, you’re less likely to expand the work to fill the available time.
• Break tasks down: Break large projects into smaller tasks using a technique called chunking, and set self-imposed deadlines along the way. This approach makes big projects feel more manageable, helps you stay focused, and can reduce the effects of Parkinson’s Law by keeping your momentum going.
• Take regular breaks: When working on a project, it’s essential to take regular breaks. This will help you avoid burnout and keep your mind fresh. Try working on a project during your most productive period and take a break when you start to feel distracted or less motivated. Just ensure you don’t use the break as an excuse to procrastinate. 

Time Management Strategies That Help You Get More Done

You can also use many different time management strategies to avoid Parkinson’s law. Using these strategies, you can ensure that you make the most of your time and avoid expanding the work to fill the time you have available.

Strategies that can help you manage your time wisely include:

• Utilizing a daily planner and other tools such as time trackers and reminders
• Setting aside time for specific tasks and blocking out distractions
• Having a routine
• Getting organized, so you don’t have to waste time looking for important items
• Avoiding multitasking, which reduces productivity and takes up more time

Rest doesn’t always come easy when you have ADHD. Even when you’re physically tired, your brain might still be racing, thinking about everything you didn’t finish, what you need to do next, or random thoughts that just won’t stop. People with ADHD may struggle to slow down, relax, or even recognize when they need rest.

Fortunately, there are things you can do to improve your ability to rest, but it takes an intentional approach. Finding the things that you find restful and prioritizing your needs are key.

How I Recognized the Problem

By the time I was diagnosed with ADHD, I had become so burnt out from trying to manage a disorder I had no name for yet that I was struggling to get even 10 hours of work done in an average week. I knew I was working less than 10 hours because I had begun meticulously tracking my hours about three months earlier. My goal was to see which tasks were taking up so much of my time to figure out why I was producing so little. Instead, I found out that I was barely working at all.

If I was only working 10 hours per week, why was I so exhausted all of the time? All I did was lie in bed or on the couch in a state of paralysis most of the day, but it wiped me out.

There aren’t many resources out there that teach you how to recover from burnout that’s not caused by working too much. The advice I kept seeing was to take more breaks and find ways to cut back on how much work I was doing. I already couldn’t afford to pay my bills with the amount I was working, and it didn’t seem like a 10-hour week was really heavy enough to warrant cutting back.

Why People With ADHD Struggle to Rest

There are a few reasons living with ADHD can make genuine rest so difficult.

The first is the general perception of rest as a privilege that you earn through hard work, rather than a biological necessity like food or sleep. Whether it’s years of internalizing the idea that I’m just lazy and undisciplined or the simple fact that I hadn’t actually done anything that day that I consider productive, I was spending most of my time feeling like I hadn’t yet earned the rest my body desperately needed.

Another reason is that the “doing nothing” that looks like rest from the outside isn’t really rest because, internally, I’m running through a list of all the things I should be doing instead and criticizing myself for not doing any of them. My brain exhausts itself from this internal restlessness and the anxiety of doing nothing so much that I have no energy left for actually doing something.

Doing nothing can also be less relaxing than it seems simply because ADHD brains are too loud. In one study, researchers measuring neuronal background “noise” in the brain using pattern electroretinography found that subjects with ADHD had 138% more background noise than those without.

5 Things I’ve Learned About Resting With ADHD

If you don’t know how to rest and find yourself struggling to follow the advice, you may feel that relaxation just isn’t in the cards for you. While I still have a long way to go, here’s what I’ve learned about rest so far.

1. My Rest Doesn’t Have to Make Sense to Others

The way I choose to spend my breaks doesn’t have to look like rest. It just has to feel relaxing or rejuvenating to me. I generally take active breaks, for example. I’m a restless person with a sedentary job.

For me, taking a break means finally being free to move around. So my definition of rest includes things like going for a run, riding my bike, hiking, or dancing around to my favorite music.

Even more unusual, I allow chores to count as a break when needed. Household chores or errands don’t sound very relaxing, but they help me release some pent-up physical energy like running or hiking do.

I try not to make chores my default rest activities, but I find them especially useful on days when I can’t quite shake the shame of needing rest. Doing a chore is a way to appease that critical voice in my head. Then, once the sink is empty or the laundry is folded, that inner critic might quiet down enough to let me do something more pleasant, like go swimming or do some creative writing.

2. When I Rest Doesn’t Have to Be Logical

The standard recommendation is to take a 10-15 minute break every hour or so. If that works for you, that’s what you should do. In my case, frequent short breaks are too disruptive. I have a hard time with task switching, so 15 minutes is rarely enough time for me to even switch from work mode to rest mode, let alone to actually benefit from the break. Instead, I’m usually just counting down the seconds until I’m allowed to dive back into the project, especially if I’m in a state of hyperfocus at the time.

3. Rest Doesn’t Have to Wait Until the End of the Day

I used to try that “eat the frog” idea of getting the hardest or least enjoyable activities out of the way first. It made sense. If I could get it done, I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. But I just don’t work like that. When I try to jump straight out of bed and get to work, my brain becomes so resistant, it feels like I’m trying to wrestle a cat into bathwater.

Instead, I started giving myself a three-hour window in the morning to wake up, get coffee, get dressed, and then spend whatever time is left on whatever activity sounds most appealing that morning: reading a book, doing some creative writing, sitting outside to enjoy an especially nice day. There are no rules. I just do whatever I feel like doing that day.

The result is that I start my work day feeling genuinely relaxed and ready. Even on bad days, it helps to know that if I’m struggling to get out of bed, I still have three hours to pull myself out of this paralysis so I’m not technically procrastinating yet.

4. The Best Rest Lets My ADHD Brain Move

Part of the exhaustion of my day comes from the simple fact that I live in a world built for people without ADHD, so I’m constantly wrangling my thoughts and forcing my brain to behave like a neurotypical brain. Activities that allow me to stop wrestling and just let go can feel relaxing, even if they don’t look like it.

That’s part of why I think chores can be relaxing for me sometimes. Doing dishes or vacuuming are productive enough to satisfy my inner critic on the days when she’s loudest, but don’t demand much cognitive effort so I can loosen the reins and let my mind wander freely for a while. Other, more interesting activities that I use to relax include cooking and creative writing or journaling.

I’ve also recently taken up crochet and found it a useful way to calm my brain down. I initially decided to try it because I thought it would be a good repetitive hobby to keep my hands busy while watching TV so that I wouldn’t compulsively scroll through social media instead of paying attention to the show.

It’s worked wonders for that, but it’s also just relaxing in that specific way my brain needs it to be. The process of crocheting something is pretty simple, and since I’m just doing it for myself, there’s no pressure to finish a project by any deadline. There’s also a tangible purpose—to make a scarf—and I can see the progress I make each night, providing enough instant gratification to appease my ADHD brain.

5. Burnout Is My Brain Asking for Rest

When I feel burnt out or trapped in a state of paralysis, my habit has always been to immediately go over all the reasons I don’t deserve to feel exhausted right now. But, whether I “deserve” to or not, I need to accept the fact that I am exhausted and that the only way forward from here is to give myself the rest I need.

On bad days when I can’t concentrate on work at all, I try to give myself permission to rest by doing one of the activities I enjoy, which calms my brain down. So far, I’m still not able to fully quiet the decades of shame and insecurity I feel about it, but being anxious about my lack of productivity while walking in the woods and listening to the birds is definitely better than being anxious about my lack of productivity while staring at the wall in front of my desk.