006 • Achieve time freedom with these two laws of productivity

University’s finished for the summer…

I’ve spent most of the time off writing content to put online. However, I’ve been struggling with getting work done, despite all the free time.

I was looking for a solution to this and came across one that I wanted to share with you.

I’m sure some of you have read The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. I started it recently too. In the early part of the book, Tim explains how you can start to achieve time freedom using two laws of productivity…

They are the Pareto Principle and Parkinson’s Law.

Many of you will have heard of one or both of these laws, but I wonder how many of you have considered combining their effects to achieve control over the time in your day?

I’m going to reveal how this can save you many hours of work, without consequences for its quality…

The Pareto Principle

Also known as the 80/20 Rule, this principle can be used to help you become more intentional with your work.

Although not limited to productivity, this rule is very effective when applied in a productivity context.

It states that 80% of effects are very often due to only 20% of causes. In productivity terms, this means that if you direct your attention towards completing your most impactful 20% of tasks, you can achieve 80% of the desired output.

To use this is an exercise in being mindful - be true to yourself when you consider what work is going to be most effective for your progress. These are the 20% of tasks that are going to make up the bulk of your impact on the world.

Ruthlessly cut out anything else that isn’t part of this 20%.

Ferriss recommends finding a piece of paper (specifically paper, because there’s finite room to write tasks) and writing down no more than two priority tasks that you’re going to execute on a day.

Then, when the time comes to work, do nothing but these two tasks until they are complete. For example, today my tasks were to publish an article and write a newsletter issue. I’ve published the article and I haven’t considered doing anything else yet, and won’t do so until this issue’s written and ready for publishing.

You’ll find that being intentional like this means that you can do 80% of your work in 20% of the time similar work normally takes you.

This is powerful enough to have an effect on your time freedom alone, but we can go further, and combine it with Parkinson’s Law…

Parkinson’s Law

I could give myself 4 hours to write this newsletter issue, or I could give myself 1.

What’s interesting is that regardless of which I pick, it’s going to take that much time to do the task.

This is Parkinson’s Law.

The idea is that a task will expand to fill the time you delegate.

Take advantage of this by giving yourself very tight deadlines to complete your work. You’ll be surprised at how you’ll subconsciously strip away all the fluff and the irrelevant details to give yourself the time to do something of substance.

Often there aren’t as many crucial steps to completing a task as you think there are either. Applying Parkinson’s Law in your favour when completing a task forces your brain to use the Pareto Principle when you’re executing - you take the most important 20% of the job and focus on executing this well, and you’ll be 80% of the way to a job well done, in a much, much shorter time.

I’ll give an example…

I’ve been writing this issue for roughly 30 minutes now. It’s currently 14:29, and I’m going to the gym at 15:00.

I could say to myself that I’ll come back to the issue later, but I know that half an hour is more than enough time to get it done.

So I’m getting it done.

Simple.

Now imagine the time you could save if you applied both these rules to your working day…

Combining The Pareto Principle and Parkinson’s Law

You’ll pick the most meaningful and productive 20% of tasks that are going to get you 80% of the way to your goal.

Then you’ll assign ruthless deadlines for each, meaning that you’ll do this priority work in a fraction of the time that it normally takes.

Time freedom beckons…

The problem for me has started to lie in the fact that I’ve gotten the most effective tasks done early in the day, leaving me sitting in front of my laptop with a lot of time to spare, slowly overthinking, wondering whether I should create a new task management system, or tweak how I organise my notes.

Now that there’s no clear goal, I still find myself back to wasting time.

The best thing to do with your newfound time freedom is to get off your screens. Disconnect for a bit.

You have free time! Spend it with people you care about, go to the gym or practice a skill in the real world.

You can also learn new things online, generating ideas. Read information directly related to what you’re currently trying to achieve (for me - The 4-Hour Work Week, $100M Offers, etc.). This is what will make you more fulfilled alongside creating work that has a positive impact on people out there in the world.

I hope that you’ve learned something from this newsletter issue. Thanks again for letting me share a snippet of knowledge with you.

Now put it into action.

Thanks for reading!

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P.S. It’s now 14:42. Told you.