An earlier version of this post appeared on my friend Rick Sammon’s blog. If you enjoy travel photography, you owe it to yourself to visit this site to see his amazing imagery and read his tips.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
The void created by the failure to communicate is soon filled with poison, drivel and misrepresentation.—C. Northcote Parkinson
The book Parkinson’s Law was written by Cyril Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993) in 1958 and included the phrase “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” and since this has been paraphrased many times over. That statement was originally the first sentence of an essay he published in The Economist. In 1957. The law was revisited when Parkinson’s books, Parkinson’s Law And Other Studies in Administration and Parkinson’s Law: Or The Pursuit of Progress were published.
Here are some of Parkinson’s other “laws” and variations that have been articulated over time:
- Work complicates to fill the available time.
- Work contracts to fit in the time we give it
- In ten hours a day you have time to fall twice as far behind your commitments as in five hours a day
- If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do
Farace’s Laws
And if you’re wondering if Farace’s Laws are part of the same universe as Parkinson’s Laws that’s partially true. The real origin and inspiration for Farace’s Laws lie in the Burke’s Law television series that ran from1963 to 1966.
My friend Rick Sammon and I have little in common except our Italian heritage but photographically, the kinds of subjects we choose to photograph are, for the most part, very different. But he and I share a similar attitude when it come to the subject of work. This topic came up during a lunch we had after Rick presented a seminar and workshop in Denver some time ago.
Over lunch, we got to talking about work habits and during the conversation I commented on my philosophy about the process of work. I explained it this way: I start each day with a written (or mental) To-Do list of all the tasks I want to accomplish during that day. As with any list of this sort there are always some things we like to do and others that we’d rather not tackle, at least not right away. It’s only human nature that most people put off all of the stuff they don’t want to do until the very last minute and some of us spend the whole day dreading having to perform those unpleasant tasks.
Since the plans of mice and men doesn’t always go as planned, the tasks we didn’t want to do, sometimes get carried over into the next day and by then we’ve spent two days dreading attacking those challenges. Sometimes newer ones come along and these now become part of a growing stack of work that we don’t want to do.
What’s The Solution?
The solution, as I explained to Rick, was that “I do all of the hard things first.” That way you have only the good stuff—the fun stuff—to do for the rest of the day with the bonus that you won’t have to do that hard stuff tomorrow or spend all night laying in bed beating yourself up about what you didn’t do that day because you already did it. This translates into a good night’s sleep and makes you ready for a new day tomorrow, where once again, you’ll do the hard stuff first. OK, it’s only a little thing but give it a try and see how it works for you.
Oh, it’s also a good idea to start off each day with a good breakfast, so you have energy enough to take on those not-so-easy tasks.
If you appreciate the advice that was proposed om today’s blog post and would like to treat me to a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), please click here. And if you do, thanks so much.