Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion
01/09/2003 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 

Revelation time. I remembered the above rule, just got the wrong name attached to it. Sod’s Law is slightly different.

Hello everyone

Revelation time. I remembered the above rule, just got the wrong name attached to it. Sod’s Law is slightly different: ‘The degree of failure is in direct proportion to the efforts expanded and to the need for success.’ A lot of people I’ve been talking to thought it was the same as Murphy’s Law: ‘If anything can go wrong, it will.’ Hope that clears up the significant differences.

An instant education in arcane observation laws that is almost up there with science-observed laws for what makes our reality tick although these and others tend to identify the pessimistic version. You never see anything happy coming from such rules as these. No doubt this is an observation of Man’s more pessimistic view of the world or more likely the pessimistic nature of the gentlemen for whom such rules are named after.

I rather like Parkinson’s First Rule. It allows some latitude to the individual to make up your own time schedule to ensure everything gets done. The real trick is squeezing things into the time available and ensuring that it is the best that you can do in that interval. I’m also using it to prove a point this month. This is probably the latest I’ve sat down and written the editorial let alone edit it (largely due to a computer problem at the beginning of the week).

I’ve been making a fair stab at catching up on my slush pile and decided to test out Parkinson’s Law at the same time. Things get completed if you find the time to fit it all in but there’s still only so many waking hours in a week. A lot of the time though, it’s just playing around with the schedule and making sure everything fits back together again. Doing things like this prevents complacency and offers a different sort of challenge...even if it means showing I still tend to be a heavy thinker even at short notice. Even when I’m doing other things, my mind tends to be active. Something that is quite normal for multi-functionals.

Do those of you in your 40s often wonder how you ever got so much done when you were younger than you do today? I’ve seen a variety of reasons for this. It varies from having more energy then compared to now to having less responsibility or the energy expanded in working for a living and house management and family getting in the way. Whatever, it boils down to having to fit everything into an arena where time isn’t a premium to be used frivolously. There’s a certain amount of scheduling for short and long-term projects with the latter getting some time in when appropriate.

It’s looking at times when instead of twiddling your fingers, you fit something into the time rather than waste it. I’ve taken to reading a book on our new longer bus route than just staring out the window. I dislike being idle and even if I can’t do anything else, then I’m always thinking. At the end of the day, it’s an application of Parkinson’s First Law. Time shrinks and expands depending on how much work you put into it. It’s a precious commodity and shouldn’t be wasted.

Life is very much a jigsaw of attempting to fit everything in. As we get older, we become more conscious of how much time we have and how much of it we should be using. No doubt this is where the term ‘quality time’ stemmed from, although it applies to more than just caring for your family. Life experience should have made you better at some things so you can do them without spending too much brain-power over decision-making and getting on with it.

When you’re younger, the learning curve is often far sharper but you’re also prone to making more mistakes. The latter often ends up shaping your personality when you should really be learning not to repeat such mistakes. As you get older, it ends up being a refinement of these skills and applying them to what you want to do in life. It can also allow you to spend more time doing things when you used to spend less time over them.

At that point you’re becoming a victim of Parkinson’s First Law rather than letting it work for you. Man invariably prefers to be lazy unless there’s an incentive to do otherwise. I’m not totally convinced by this. Just that the more busy ones are out-numbered by the lazy ones.

With Science Fiction, where we’re regarded within the genre as supposedly being more intellectual than those interested in other genres, there is often a need to keep reaffirming this in some way. We’re also supposed to understand a little more about how time works...we read time-travel stories although what difference that makes, I don’t know. With things like Parkinson’s First Law, one really has to take the clock by the hands and make it work for you. The challenge is always to make your time work for you. Leave it too long and you run out of your allotted time on this planet. If you want to do anything, it’s better to get on with it than not. Even long term plans have to start somewhere.

The above applies to all walks of life and to all kinds of jobs. Making the best use of your time is really up to the individual. It’s what differentiates the doers from the couch potatoes. If you want to think of yourself as effective in life, then the only person who can do it is yourself. I can see many of you shrugging and saying your normal job is mundane and boring. Been there. Done it myself. Still do with doing the household chores.

What I discovered a long time ago is to treat it as a game and by treating it as a game. Oddly enough, I upped my efficiency cos I wanted to see how much work I could fit into the time and ended up with time to spare for myself. A good training exercise to allow for profound and heavy thinking in the gaps. All hail Parkinson’s First Law!

All the goading in the world isn’t likely to change your nature. I can convince you to walk across the embers of a live volcano to remove excess body hair but it’s only a short term effect. To become better at whatever you do in the long term depends entirely on yourself.

Me? I’m a great believer in Parkinson’s First Law. Re-enforcing what it can do is one of my favourite occupations. Not always successful, mind you, but when I’m effective, watch out.

Be happy. Be safe. Enjoy the rest of the website.

Thank you and good night

Geoff Willmetts

editor: SFCrowsnest.com

PS For those keeping up with my health. Anyone want a head cold? I’ve got several going spare together with an irritating cough and stuffy throat that gets me when I least expect it.

(Less Serious) Thought For The Month # 1: With much of the SF TV series off the box during the summer months on British terrestrial TV at the moment, I’ve taken to re-watching ‘Babylon 5’ late night. As much as I liked the first 4 seasons, B5 suffers a similar problem to the original ‘Star Trek’. Both shows used unmarked computer data chips. With Trek, they were the size of roulette chips - and knowing their budget probably were - and with B5, these data chips were no bigger than the tip of your thumb.

Now, I don’t know about you but if I couldn’t identify all my floppy disks and CDs with a proper labelling system, I’d be in a terrible mess. Wouldn’t having to scurry through them all to find one unlabelled data chip make you want to do something to ease identification? I can’t believe the future man or alien in either show is going to change that much from having a similar problem. At the end of the day, it isn’t going to be the size or shape of a mobile data disk that is going to be influential but the size required to make identification labels easy to read.

(Less Serious) Thought For The Month # 2: While we’re comparing shows, I’m developing a pet peeve for desert worlds. If your world is mostly sand desert like, oh Arrakis from Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ series and George Lucas’ Tatooine in ‘Star Wars’, then the atmosphere is likely to end up being a murky and poisonous because there is nothing there to replenish the oxygen. Frank Herbert realised this late in his own series and indicated that there were areas of Arrakis that were green but in small quantities and had air purifiers around.

When you create your own realities, always give some thought to a planet’s ecology and look at the oxygen cycle or whatever they breath to ensure that it is restorable.

PS If you’ve survived this far in the editorial, let me reiterate something from the website newsletter. As you can see from the main page, we have one of the biggest SF/fantasy/horror monthly reviews column. Our success has increased the number of books that comes in and our policy is to read everything before giving a review. We roadtest books so you have some idea of what you’re letting yourself in for when all you’ve got to go by is the cover and promotional blurb.

If you like reading books in the genre, think and can show you can write a decent review and, most importantly, live in the British Isles (sorry, expense, time and distance travelled prohibits elsewhere), contact me below for my ‘Reviews Flyer’ - put this in the subject ebox and we’ll see if you’ve got what it takes. We can’t pay you but a review for the price of a book has to be a good incentive. We have one of the most popular SF review columns on the Net. Think you’re up to writing a review??

PPS: For those keeping track, I’m still about 18 months (early September 2001 now if you’re still thinking I’m just repeating the same message every month) behind with going through the ebook samples. Thank you for your patience but let me know if you’ve sold elsewhere so I can reduce my pile or if you’ve changed address, especially e-mail address. I’ve looked through a few recently who’ve sold elsewhere so that made moving on 2 months easier.

This isn’t much of a repeat, just to show you’re not forgotten. Those sending in samples, be prepared for a wait and read the Guidelines elsewhere on this website. They are there to help you do some of the right things and reduce the number of times I’m repeating myself over silly grammatical errors. It makes editing a lot easier if any editor has less work correcting poor English which should have been sorted out in the first place. There’s an old editorial adage, if you can’t aim for perfection why should an editor nurse-maid you to that state? If you’re a writer, then you should understand the words and grammar of the job you’re supposed to be writing or are you considering it as mundane and boring as any other job to get right?