Parkinson’s Law for Musicians: How to Achieve More in Less Time

You’ve probably heard the phrase:

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

This is Parkinson’s Law, a concept first introduced in 1955 by British naval historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson. It’s the idea that the more time we give ourselves to complete a task, the longer we’ll take to get it done—regardless of how much time is actually needed.

For musicians, this can be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it’s why you were able to pull off that entire mix between 1 and 3am the night before it was due to your client. On the other hand, it’s why some projects drag on for months or even years with little progress. You’re in the middle of one of those projects right now, aren’t you?

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Ever find the band short on time, squeezing in one quick 45- or 60-minute rehearsal before the show, and you’re all magically left blown away that you got through everything so well and so efficiently?

Now how about the opposite: Ever have the first of a series of 3- or 4-hour rehearsals but barely even scratch the surface of all of the material you needed to cover?

Yep? Well those, more than likely, were both Parkinson’s in action.

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With those rehearsals, as with your own personal practice time, the less time you give yourself, the more intentional you have to be. And sometimes that can work in your favor. Why?

Because it brings clarity. Crushing it that last-minute gig prep or songwriting sprint (while not something I suggest always doing) can work because the extremely tight deadline forces you to prioritize what matters. It’s like the high school or college exam you crammed for late the night before, and miraculously aced. Your brain become hyper-focused, concentrated on the most-necessary information, and told itself that it was finally high time to kick into high gear and knock this one out of the park.

And because it eliminates (or at least minimizes) overthinking. Long timelines and/or vague or non-existent deadlines can lead to analysis paralysis, where we second-guess every decision.

Parkinson’s Law teaches us to act instead of overthink, and to focus that action on only the important stuff.

I first learned about this concept in Tim Ferriss’s book The 4-Hour Workweek. Shortly afterward, I put it to the test myself. At the time, I was in the very preliminary stages of a percussion play-along recording project and had mapped out a timeline of what the entire process would look like. Stretching out over the span of several months, I had outlined the steps involved.

• Choosing what rhythms would be included.
• Which instruments I would integrate.
• What tempos they would be performed at.
• Where I would record.
• Who would engineer the sessions.
• Editing, mixing, and mastering.
• Artwork?
• How to get CDs duplicated. (yes, I said CDs)
• What my budget was going to look like.
• How I could distribute online and elsewhere.
• Etc.

The project had already been looming for quite some time and I was frustrated. I had already put it off long enough and really wanted to have a product in hand by the time I taught at a fast-approaching percussion festival.

I was driving through downtown Salem, Oregon one afternoon when, in a flash, my brain said: It’s time to test out this Parkinson’s Law thing.

I immediately pulled over to the side of the street, pulled out a notebook, and just [freaking finally] made some executive decisions about what would and would not be on the album. No more time allowed to dilly-dally any longer and (presumably) deliberate about it. After scribbling a few notes that provided some clarity around what I was hoping to accomplish, I grabbed my cellphone. A quick call to my friend Tom Nunes and I had a recording engineer, a session date in the calendar (the very next week!), and someone to handle the cover art. Another quick call to badass drummer buddy Jason Carter and I had worked out duplication, packaging, and shrink wrapping.

Literally 20 minutes from the moment I decided that I was going to take action sooner rather than later, and I had nearly everything figured out and set in motion. What I had told myself would be months of work, in reality, took less than a half hour.

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Will this work with everything we set out to do? No. Will this work with many things? Hells yes.

I occasionally have to remind myself to implement this approach but, when I do, I am, still to this day, almost always blown away by the results that I can pull off.

Parkinson’s Law and the value of setting unrealistic deadlines (which we’ll revisit in the future) have been on my mind a lot recently. It’s currently the top of the new year. Last month’s annual review and planning has me feeling a bit wide-eyed, wondering if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.

Maybe.

Or maybe I can accomplish more than I think I can if I stop pretending that everything has to be a ginormous, time-intensive undertaking.

So, that children’s chapter book that I’ve been mostly sitting on for a couple of years now? My self-imposed deadline: Its final pass of editing will be completed this weekend. Old C.N. Parkinson has me cranking hard on it. Only eight of twenty chapters left since printing it out the day before last. It’s go time!

And when a company emailed two weeks ago to accept a product pitch from me and inquire about when they might see delivery of it? I looked at the calendar, did some math, calculated that I should be able to finish it all in two, maaaybe three months, and then replied: I’ll commit to having them done by the end of this month.

A bit nuts? Probably. Will they both get done? Yep. And then those projects will be checked off my list and free to float out into the world. Maybe even make me a few bucks while they’re at it. And just as important, my energy can move on to whatever I choose is next.

How to Apply Parkinson’s Law in Your Musical Life?

Set tighter practice and rehearsal timelines:

Limit your otherwise unfocused, stream-of-consciousness practice session to 30 minutes and focus on one specific skill (mastering a fill, locking a groove, or nailing a vocal run). Use a visible timer to stay on track (I am really loving this one these days). And no pausing to doom scroll on the socials between exercises!

Do something similar with band rehearsals. Value your (and everyone else’s) time more highly. Make it an hour. Two if you really have to. But ask everyone in advance to show up on time, prepared to knock out a pre-determined list of songs. Or maybe just the problem section(s) of each song.

And if you’re the player who wastes everyone’s time in rehearsal, making them keep playing and wait while you take multiple choruses of solos on multiple songs every single time . . . well, we’ll have words about that later. Just . . . don’t be that person.

Set an unrealistic deadline:

As I described above with my project, just try giving yourself less than time than you think you’ll need. Maybe it won’t be enough time. Or maybe you’ll surprise yourself!

Experimenting with this sort of artificial constraint can be fun and drive creativity. Try writing a new melody in only the next 15 minutes!

Create micro-deadlines for big projects:

Instead of trying to “Write an album by next year,” break it into chunks: “Finish one song demo by Friday.”

And use available tools to help organize these goals and steps into manageable tasks. I am personally a huge fan of Notion and Asana, and use both their desktop and mobile versions daily.

Learn to walk away:

Combat perfectionism by giving yourself a hard stop time. Spend no more than two hours mixing that one track. Then get up and walk away from it. Perfect can sometimes be worth striving for. Other times, not so much.

Use time blocking for creative work:

Assign specific, limited windows of time within the day (or week) for tasks like songwriting, editing, or learning new material. Then keep that commitment to yourself. Don’t let one project’s work bleed over into time allotted for a different one.

Do More By Doing Less

Parkinson’s Law may not always be the tactic to employ but it’s more than just a quirky mental model. It’s a reminder that your time is a precious resource and how you use it shapes your outcomes. The next time you find yourself procrastinating or getting bogged down in the details, try setting a tighter deadline or creating some other self-imposed constraint to force yourself into focus mode.

Any ideas about how you can (and will) put this to work? Tell me about it in a comment below!

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