The productivity paradox

Among students and academia, busyness has become a status symbol. The widespread message is if you’re not constantly working, you’re falling behind. The pressure to set oneself apart from others at a large research university often means that students fixate on schoolwork and spend their “leisure” time seeking out extracurricular activities, leaving themselves with little to no breathing room. It’s easy to see why a competitive attitude is ubiquitous when students tend to measure their own success by the standards of their peers. We cloak this as “ambition” and take pride in always being busy—even at the expense of mental and physical wellbeing.

This mentality affected me deeply during my second year. I grew distant—though I was physically present in my lectures, I was mentally absent. Constantly working, it became easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. I was so focused on memorizing information that every class began to feel like a deluge of disjointed facts. The lifelong passion that I had for science was wavering. In my mind, my schedule was so precariously arranged that any sudden shift in plans would cause me to fall behind. I was walking a tightrope, but my legs were cramping. I often thought to myself: once I get past this week, once I get past these exams, then I’ll have time to relax . Unfortunately, such a time never came. I questioned why I was feeling unwell—I was doing everything right, operating at full capacity, yet I felt consistently inadequate.

I reached my breaking point at the start of my third year, when the thought of facing another grueling eight months was paralyzing. The attrition of my spirit left me exhausted and jaded, unable to concentrate and feeling impotent as everyone around me appeared to thrive. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t keep up the constant work. I began to study less and gave up my strict schedule and suddenly… I had free time! After a few months, I thought I had failed as a student; I mentally prepared myself to watch my GPA tank from the sidelines. But paradoxically, my grades were better than ever. I was astounded; this went against everything I knew at the time. I couldn’t comprehend how I could possibly be doing more by doing less.

I decided to research the topic of productivity and stumbled upon Parkinson’s Law on Quora. This was the idea that brought everything together. Parkinson’s Law is not really a law at all (though it does come along with a mathematical formula). It is the concept that work expands to fill the time available, with minimal effect on its quality. The reverse is not true. This means that if given a year to do a project, a person will take a year to do it. But if given a month, it will get done in just as much time. You might be familiar with this idea as “cramming”. Though it doesn’t apply to every case (especially in creative domains), time constraints force people to discover new methods of working in order to do the same amount of work in less time. It’s always uncomfortable, but the time saved is well worth it.

This idea was first articulated in 1955 by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in The Economist, where he expressed that “It is a commonplace observation that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” During his time in the British naval service, he observed that although operations dwindled and the number of ships decreased by two thirds between 1914 and 1928, the number of admirals continued to steadily increase. From this, Parkinson posited what he believed to be a fundamental flaw concerning bureaucratic logistics: the addition of more management positions creates more work. I think this concept applies to any system increasing in complexity. The evolution of the cerebrum has afforded human beings an awesome capacity for extremely complex thought. Yet, it is this same ability that often causes unnecessary suffering from overthinking and worrying.

Parkinson’s Law has two implications. Firstly, that work will never end so long as there is no deadline. Secondly, that most output stems from a small amount of input. In other words, productivity isn’t linear, rather it follows the law of diminishing returns. This second corollary is a theory of its own called the Pareto principle, or 80/20 rule: 20 percent of the work creates 80 percent of the result.

Parkinson’s Law is not a universal solution, nor should it be used to set unreasonable deadlines. Instead, it should encourage students to maximize efficiency and develop self-discipline by setting hard deadlines instead of relying on external ones. The feeling of always being overwhelmed by work may be an indication to re-examine the approach. In this way, Parkinson’s Law helped me to break the self-destructive habit of constantly working. I learned to trust my abilities and focus on the significance, as I no longer gave myself time to waste obsessing over details. I was finally able to enjoy my courses because I could think critically about the material. I still learned everything I needed to, but now I had time to do other things, too.

We are often told to maintain a “healthy work-life balance” because it will help to prevent burnout. It’s ironic that we should relax so that we can do more work. Conversely, there are countless books, apps, and motivational talks on how to optimize work—not so it can be finished faster, but so there is time to do even more work. I believe that we should work more efficiently so that we have time to relax purely for our own well-being, development, and enjoyment.

In summarizing Helmuth Plessner’s work, Corina Stan says that “Human existence is a striving between being and becoming.” The temptation to sacrifice free time for work is now stronger than ever given that many of us are working in our living spaces. However, without free time to think, one fails to develop their personal values and ends up living according to the standards of others. An individual’s intrinsic worth is not dependent on their output, and although students may learn a lot in university, it is during free time that they learn about themselves.