Parkinson’s Law was named after Cyril Northcote Parkinson, who was not involved in life coaching at all.  He was worked in the British Civil Service and in 1955 published an essay which began by stating, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” (according to Wikipedia).  Just goes to show you that there are some people who work for the government who may actually be interested in life coaching to get themselves out of the ‘rat race’ we hear so much about.  While the current form of this law is now about the mathematical rate at which bureaucracies expand over time, it’s still a great life balance coaching concept.  Especially since it means that as the years go by, we become even more ineffective if we don’t do something to change.  This seems like a powerful reason to look at life balance coaching now.

Using Parkinson’s Law Can Help You Find Balance in Your Life Coaching Business

How can we apply Parkinson’s Law in our own life and our life coaching businesses?  Many times we use the life coaching time management tool of creating blocks of time to get certain things done.  How often do you find yourself with extra time after that block?  More commonly we find we didn’t have quite enough time to complete a project in that block and have to find more time by stealing it from somewhere else.  Usually it cuts into our “free” time, which is why life balance coaching has become popular.  In fact, one of the greatest frustrations people express when enrolling in life balance coaching is not having enough time for it all.

For Life Balance Coaching You Must Refine Your Tools to be More Effective

While I’m not suggesting that we throw the baby out with the bath and eliminate creating blocks of time in life balance coaching, this tool needs some refinement.  Perhaps we could be more productive by creating sub-blocks of time.  One block might be to create an outline of the task; giving it an appropriate length of time with a five minute buffer to have a cup of tea or other life coaching celebratory reward such a giving yourself 10 pats on the back.

Another way to chunk time is to re-think the concept of the block of time.  One of my life balance coaching colleagues suggests committing to completion of certain tasks within a block, instead of committing to work for a certain amount of time.  This creates focus, intensity and power instead a plow horse mentality of just getting through it.  Remember that these blocks of time are not like sitting in detention after school, they are designed to get you closer to your life coaching goals.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Bi-Designated Strategy and Accoutntability Coach