88. Why Everything Takes Longer Than It Should (and How to Fix It)

Ever wondered why simple tasks seem to take forever? That’s Parkinson’s Law at work—“tasks expand to fill the time available for their completion.” In this episode of Work-Life Balance for Speech Pathologists, I’m pulling back the curtain on how this sneaky time trap affects SLPs, OTs, and PTs, and—more importantly—how to break free from it.

I’m sharing my personal journey with Parkinson’s Law, from the days when I let tasks balloon endlessly to how I’ve reshaped my approach to time management. Spoiler: it’s not about working harder—it’s about working smarter.

We’ll dive into:
✅ The Real Impact of Parkinson’s Law on your work-life balance
✅ Why “done is better than perfect” is my new productivity mantra
✅ How recognizing the value of your time can instantly shift your decision-making
✅ The game-changing mindset shift that helped me stop wasting hours on low-priority tasks
✅ The power of curiosity over criticism when reflecting on time management hiccups

✨ Quick Wins from This Episode:

• Learn to spot when Parkinson’s Law is sneaking into your workflow
• Discover simple strategies to get tasks done faster
• Walk away with a fresh perspective on perfectionism and productivity

If you’re tired of feeling like your workday is never-ending or constantly running behind, this episode is your roadmap to reclaiming your time.

💡 Additional Resources:
👉 Join the SLP Support Group on Facebook for bonus tips & community support
👉 Book a free consult to learn about 1:1 productivity coaching
👉 Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review if this episode helped you!

To find out how I can help you improve your work-life balance, click here.

Come join the SLP Support Group on Facebook for more tips and tricks!

Follow me on Instagram! @theresamharp

Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to Work-Life balance for Speech Pathologists. I'm Theresa Harp, an SLP and productivity coach, and this podcast is all about how to build a successful career as an SLP and still have time for yourself and the people and things you love. So if you're ready to ditch stress and burnout for a more balanced and fulfilling life, then you are in the right place. Let's dive in.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. If this is your very first episode ever, listening to the Work-Life Balance for Speech Pathologists podcast, welcome. And if you are a longtime listener, welcome back. And either way, thanks for being here. So last week on the show, episode 87, I talked a little bit about Parkinson's Law.

And today's episode is also about Parkinson's law, but it's through a different lens. So last week I was kind of walking you [00:01:00] through what Parkinson's Law is and how it shows up for SLPs, PTs, and OTs. So if you haven't listened to that episode, you're going to want to check that one out. But you don't need to listen to that first in order to get value out of this episode, okay?

So if this is your first episode, don't worry about it. But in order for you to really benefit from what I'm going to talk about today, I just want to briefly share what I mean when I say Parkinson's Law, okay? So that we're all on the same page. Parkinson's Law refers to the theory where work will expand to fill the amount of available time.

So, for example, if you have, let's say, two hours to write an evaluation report, that evaluation report will essentially expand so that you take the full two hours to get it done. [00:02:00] versus, let's say, if you had 30 minutes to get the evaluation report done, that you would essentially be able to get it done in 30 minutes.

Now, obviously, this is not a flawless theory. I am, I don't know about you, but I am one who's always sort of looking for the exceptions or poking holes or really looking at, you know, how does this not stand up? So, there are, there are absolutely some pieces of Parkinson's Law. Where it may not always ring true, but in general, right, this, this idea, the idea is that if you have more time, you will take more time.

If you have less time, you will take less time. Okay? And what I was talking about last week was I was giving you examples of how this shows up as an SLP, PT, and OT, and I was also talking about why this happens. Why does this happen? Okay? In today's episode, I'm [00:03:00] actually going to share a little bit of a more personal journey with my own personal journey with time management and specifically as it relates to Parkinson's Law.

So I'm going to kind of walk you through how this has shown up for me and more importantly, what I've done about it that you can also do. About it to help you work through some of this sort of drama or a challenge or you know Analysis paralysis, whatever it looks like for you. Okay, because really that is that is the point We want to learn about these time management topics and we want to learn about time management techniques, but we really want to look at how can we get there?

How can we get there? So I'm going to share how I have gotten there and I want to be incredibly clear that this is Absolutely not a, Hey, look at [00:04:00] me. This is how I do it. This is how I do it perfectly. This is how I always do it perfectly. Absolutely not. Okay? And in fact, that is one of the first points that I want to make.

So for me, Parkinson's law, I still find myself falling in that trap from time to time, okay? And that, I think, is a really important piece to be transparent about because, quite frankly, the goal is not for this to never happen. The goal is not for you to never have any challenges with time management.

That's unrealistic. The goal is to equip you with how to Handle those challenges with time management and how to reduce the frequency. and the complexity of your time management challenges. So we're looking for progress, not perfection. Okay? So for me, I absolutely still struggle with [00:05:00] Parkinson's Law, but there's a big difference between where I'm at now and where I was before.

Okay? And that's what I'm going to talk to you about today. So, now I find this happening less frequently in my life, okay, whereas before it was kind of the standard. That was my MO. If I have this amount of time, I'm going to use this amount of time. I can remember from, I remember this from, Childhood. I can remember back in elementary school when we were doing standardized testing.

Don't get me started. We were doing standardized testing and back then it was CTBS testing. I remember taking, I think it was CTBS, I remember taking CTBS testing and I remember you'd have a certain amount of time to get the test done. I was always the last one. No matter what, I was always the last one to hand in my test.

No matter [00:06:00] what. And I think there's a number of reasons why that was the case. And that's really not what this episode is about. But my point is that this has been, I've had a long history with Parkinson's Law showing up for me. And where before it used to be the norm, now it is the exception. Okay? It still happens, but it doesn't happen as often.

Happens a lot less frequently. So There is hope. If I did it, you can do it. Absolutely. Okay, but I want to talk about how. So why is it happening less frequently for me? Okay, because that is, in my opinion, what you can consider applying to your own life. Okay, because These are the ways that I have shifted this and these are the ways that you can shift this, okay?

Now these are not all the [00:07:00] ways, but these are kind of the, the biggest, I would say the biggest, um, the strategies that I've used that have had the biggest impact, that have played the biggest role in my ability to start shifting this. So the first one is that I have lowered my standards significantly. So I've now lowered my standards to done is better than perfect.

That's sort of my motto. Done is better than perfect. Now, Easier said than done, no pun intended. I think this is much easier for me to say this than to actually believe it and put it into play, but I had to start somewhere. And so I started with that intentional thought, done is better than perfect. And the reason why I think this is so hard for so many of us is because of this deep seated belief, a misguided belief by the way, that [00:08:00] these tasks, these things that we do as us.

LPs in our, in our profession, even in our role as a spouse or a parent taking care of an adult or as a, uh, parent taking care of children, right? I think in all different roles. We have this belief that the quality of our work determines the value of our, our identity. The value of, of ourselves in that role and in that identity.

So I had to really shift this association between the work I produce and my value and my My value and my and the quality of my overall professionalism as an SLP, okay? We have to separate those two and I've talked about this in different ways on [00:09:00] the podcast But I can't talk about it enough because it's so deep seated.

I think it comes from A lot from grad school, from grad school. I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. I'm staying focused. Okay. But I think we have this underlying belief that I have to do my best on this. I have to write this report and it needs to be well written and it needs to be a really solid representation of this client.

And also my ability and, um, my value and my experience and my knowledge as a clinician. And that gets us stuck, okay? That absolutely gets us stuck. So, does this mean now that I've adopted this sort of done is better than perfect mentality, does it mean that sometimes I'm turning in things that I could have done better?

Yes. Yes, that's the truth. I can think [00:10:00] of an example yesterday. I had to fill out, I had to fill out some paperwork, write up a report about something. I did not have a lot of time, but I needed to get it done. And I wanted to get it done, and so I submitted it, and it was not the best quality of work. It absolutely, I absolutely could have done it better than I did.

But, what I now recognize is that I can't do my best on every little thing that consumes my time. Like, I cannot strive for perfection, strive for best, on all the things that have to get done, because that road leads to burnout. It only leads to burnout. So if I'm continuing and constantly trying to put that level of pressure on myself, it, number one, is an unrealistic expectation.

And then number two, it just reduces my ability to do a good job on, in other areas, right? [00:11:00] And it eventually leads to burnout. Because we only have so much time, we only have so much energy. That's the, that's the truth. So instead of trying to do my best on every little thing, on every session note, or on every report, or in every session, or in every email that I write, instead, what I try to do is zoom out and think about, okay, am I doing my best overall?

Like, across all of these tasks that consume my time is the sort of net average. Does that even make sense? By the way, I do not speak math, so maybe that doesn't even make sense. But I try and make sure that sort of the overall average across those tasks is reflective of best ish, air quotes best, right?

Like overall. Do I feel good about my overall quality of work? Not each [00:12:00] individual piece, but just overall. So, done is better than perfect, okay? There's so much more I could say about that, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna move on. I'm gonna give you the next thing. So, done is better than perfect. I've shifted that, um, I've shifted to that mentality, out of that perfectionism mentality and into done is better than perfect, okay?

The next thing, the next way that I have worked through Parkinson's Law is recognizing that the value of my time and, well overall, is recognizing the value of my time and recognizing that spending time on one thing means that I'm not spending time on something else. So that's really the second and third piece here.

So let me break them apart one by one so that it makes more sense. Okay, so I said I mentioned the [00:13:00] value of my time, right? I cannot stress this enough, as I started to realize, and this really happened I think when I became a parent, but it happens to all of us at some point, I hope actually, that we start to really recognize the value of our time, and we need to realize that because time is so limited.

Relatively speaking, and we cannot create more of it, we can only change the way we spend it, right? So, with that in mind, it has shifted the way that I spend my time. It's shifted the things that I decide to spend my time on. It shifted how much time I dep I decide to put into something because I know that, that, that my time is valuable and that's not a, Hey, my time is valuable.

That's our time is valuable, my time is valuable. Your time is valuable, everybody. [00:14:00] needs to recognize the value of your time, especially for those of you who are listening and want better work life balance. You want to stop feeling like you're on that hamster wheel. You want to stop feeling like you're constantly trying to catch up.

If you don't recognize how valuable your time is, you're not able to Recognize how impactful it can be to shift the way you spend it, even in small little increments and small little instances. They add up over time. No pun intended. Okay. So really recognizing the value of your time. And once you have that sort of mentality, once you've adopted that mindset, that your time is incredibly valuable, then it helps you.

To understand that when you're spending time on one thing, you are then not spending time on [00:15:00] something else. Which is, again, the third piece, the third thing that has helped me with overcoming Parkinson's Law or really with, you know, working through my ability to manage getting stuck in Parkinson's Law.

So I now realize, because I know time is finite, if I'm spending time on this, it means I'm not spending time on that. You got to be really careful here not to use that against yourself. So this isn't like, Oh God, I'm spending time on this and I'm not spending time on that. See, I'm a terrible mother, right?

Or see, I'm a terrible spouse or I'm a terrible SLP, whatever, right? This is not to be used against yourself. This is actually to be used in service of yourself. Like, okay, I realize that if I spend I've got an hour of time and I need, I've got this list of things to do. This list of things to do take up way more than one hour worth of time.

So if [00:16:00] I choose to spend my time on this, then I'm not spending my time on that. Am I okay with that? Right? It's just this sort of neutral place where you are evaluating. Where do I want to direct my time and attention? Where do I want to direct my energy? And it leads you to become a more informed consumer of time because that's it.

We are consuming time. Everything we do consumes time. Everything is time consuming. So if you start recognizing both the value of your time and thinking about this as like a checks balances type of thing. Time spent here means I can't spend time there. It helps you to spend your time more thoughtfully, right?

Just because I have two hours to spend on something doesn't mean that it has to take two hours. I get to decide. And if it's truly something that does need more than two hours to accomplish, and I only have two [00:17:00] hours, how am I going to handle that? Well, maybe I don't do that task at all, and I save it for another Another day, another time when I have more time available.

Or maybe I chunk it and I take part of that task and I accomplish part of it. I work on part of it, right? So you see how doing this, adopting these two mindsets really helps you to become more in control and it helps you to become a more informed person. consumer of time and spend it more thoughtfully, spend it more intentionally.

So, now what I do is I ask myself, okay, I have, I have, well, two things. First I ask myself how much time do I have, answer that as best I can, and then I ask myself how much do I want to spend? How much time do I want to spend on this activity? And then I set my timer, and I get to work. Now, would I sometimes like to spend more time on something?

Sure. Do I ever start working [00:18:00] on it and realize, Oh wow, I totally miscalculated. I thought I I only needed a half hour for this, but I actually needed an hour, sure. But that's just information. That's just feedback. Now I take that and I use it for learning. And so now the next time when this scenario pops up, I can lean on my learning from past experiences and use that to inform how I'm going to spend my time.

Right? You see how it's just this sort of work in progress. Okay, because again, done is better than perfect. And then last but not least, what I'm going to say about this with Parkinson's Law and my journey is when I find myself stuck in that trap and I do take more time than I should, air quotes, right, if I recognize, because this again, like I said, this still happens to me.

It just happens less often. But during moments and instances where I do. spend more time on a task than I really needed to, [00:19:00] the difference in my response is massive. The way I respond to that now versus the way I responded to that before is huge. So before, When I would spend more time than I thought was necessary or, you know, when I would use all of the time on a task, I would sometimes beat myself up over it.

Like, what is wrong with you? Why couldn't you get this done faster? So many people would have gotten this done by now. Why do you think that you need to Spend all this time on that. Now you can't do this. Now you're just late with this thing. Now you're behind on this, right? It's that negative self talk and it would be the shame spiral that would be incredibly harmful, unproductive, and yeah, just not good, right?

That negative self talk. So that Sometimes would happen. [00:20:00] And now, when, when I wind up taking more time on something and using all of the available time, if I didn't actually need all of the available time, I approach it with curiosity. I respond with curiosity. My brain might offer me a negative, some negative self talk at first, but I catch that very quickly and I'm like, wait a second, what happened here?

So, huh, that's interesting. I took, I, I, I took the full two hours to get this thing done when I know that I can get that done much sooner or much quicker. So I wonder what happened. Well, did I? Was I submitting it to somebody and I was feeling a little bit inadequate about my abilities or I was worried about what they might think?

Did I fail to account for my energy levels? Like maybe I'm just not feeling myself today and I'm you [00:21:00] know, low energy or not, not at 100%. And so it took a little bit longer than it normally would. Um, was I distracted? Was I more distracted than normal? So I'm curiously, is that, I'm sort of approaching this with curiosity.

I'm looking at the situation and wondering what happened. Not. shaming myself and guilt tripping myself for not doing better. And you know what happens when you look at it with curiosity and you start asking yourself questions and then answering those questions? Learning happens. Change happens. So then, the next time I find myself in that situation, I can sort of plan for that a little bit.

more, a little bit more easily. I can avoid that situation happening again and repeating those past sort of mistakes, if you will, air quotes. I don't even really think they're mistakes but struggling to come up with a better word. Okay, so it helps me [00:22:00] to do better next time. It helps me to learn more about myself.

It helps me to learn more about my work habits and it helps me then to use that information and move forward with it. So that is In a nutshell, what I've been working on, one thing that I've been working on over the past several years. on my journey with time management and my journey in particular with Parkinson's Law, okay?

So just to recap, uh, some of the shifts that I have made that have helped me with Parkinson's Law and, and not using all of the available time anymore, anymore, not letting the task expand to fill the available time. I've lowered my standards to done is better than perfect. I have recognized the value of my time and I have also recognized the sort of checks and balances that time spent on one [00:23:00] thing means time that you can't spend on something else.

So really recognizing that time is finite and Looking at where I need to balance the way that I'm spending my time to meet my own needs. And then when this does happen, when I do get stuck, really responding to myself from a place of neutrality, curiosity, and support, so that I'm working on getting better, I'm taking care of myself, and I'm not using any of this against me.

Okay, so I would love to hear what, if anything, resonated with you, what you're going to try. If you, um, are not in the SLP support group, pop into the support group, click the link in the show notes, join, uh, join the group and let us know what are you going to try this week to help you. overcome Parkinson's Law.

And if this is the kind of thing that you want direct support with, reach out. Schedule a free consult. The link is always in the show [00:24:00] notes. I'm always happy to talk with potential clients and help you learn more about what I do as a time management coach and how I can support you with improving your work life balance.

So again, you can click the link in the show notes or you can go to www.theresaharp.com/coaching to learn more. All right, that's it for today's episode. I'll talk to you all soon. Bye.