When I first started teaching one-day workshops on managing multiple priorities back in 2009, I came across Parkinson’s Law.

Parkinson’s Law is the principle that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

An excellent example of this was Harry Hopkins, one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s closest advisers.

Harry suffered from many tragedies limiting the time he could spend on his work — from his second wife dying in 1937 to his battle with cancer. Even though he had to officially resign from his cabinet position in 1940, he remained committed to advising Roosevelt. Working only a few hours a day forced Hopkins to focus on what mattered most.

In The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker describes how Hopkins became the go-between for President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill accomplishing more than anyone else in wartime Washington  Tellingly, Churchill dubbed Hopkins “Lord Heart of the Matter.”

At first, I was skeptical of Parkinson’s Law, but after many workshops as a time management speaker working with thousands of employees in a variety of roles across many different industries, I began to see the validity in it.

When someone is required to show up at 9 a.m. and work till 5 p.m. they will find tasks or be given tasks deemed as “important.” Quickly they will find themselves thinking, “everything is important”, and then feel the stress of “I don’t have enough time.” I expand on this in my article on “How to Prioritize.”

The harder someone works, the less they prioritize and think strategically.

And then, usually what happens is, we dig in deeper, arrive earlier, stay longer, and begin to make sacrifices that impact on our personal time, family, and health.

So how much work is enough?

My answer is, less then you are working now. Experiment if you can by reducing your hours back to six. Have fun with it.

According to many studies, most of us are only productive for around three hours a day.

President Ronald Reagan had it right when he said, “I’ve heard that hard work never killed anyone, but I say why take the chance.”

by Eric Papp

Time Management Speaker

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