Chapter 55: Parkinson's Law

Imagine this:

The year is 1830.

You're stuck inside a stone building in Paris.

The walls are cold, the air is damp, and you can hear the clatter of carriages and the distant hum of voices in the street.

But you're not part of the world right now.

You're not allowed to be.

Why?

Because you have a job to do.

And if you don't do it, you'll lose everything.

Your reputation, your credibility, and potentially one of the most iconic buildings in your city.

That's the exact spot Victor Hugo found himself in September of 1830.

He had signed a contract to write a novel meant to defend Gothic architecture, which was being systematically stripped from France at the time. Buildings that had stood for centuries were being demolished.

It was a noble mission, so he took the advance.

But there was a problem…

He spent nearly two years circling the idea without writing the book. Thinking, planning, researching, and giving his publisher every excuse he could muster.

Until finally his publisher smacked him across the face with an ultimatum:

Deliver the manuscript in six months or face serious financial penalties.

So Hugo did something extreme.

He locked away all of his clothes except a single shawl. The kind of thing that makes you look vaguely ridiculous if you wear it to a dinner party.

Which was exactly the point.

He cut himself off from social life entirely and turned his home into a jail cell.

No cafés. No wandering the winding streets of Paris. No dinner parties.

He removed every easy excuse to avoid the work he had to do. And then he did the only thing left he could do...

He wrote.

Not because he felt inspired. Not because writing suddenly became fun or easy.

But because writing was his only option. Sitting there in his shawl, staring at the walls, was worse than facing the blank page.

And guess what happened….

Five months later, he delivered the manuscript.

The book was The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

It became a cultural force. It sparked public awareness, ignited a preservation movement, and ultimately helped save Notre Dame Cathedral itself from being demolished.

Without that book, the cathedral likely would have been destroyed. Turned into rubble and lost to history.

Not bad for a guy in a shawl, huh?

But that's not the part of the story worth paying attention to.

Take a closer look at what Hugo actually did.

When he was given an ultimatum, he stripped away all his options.

Once he had a deadline (a real one), the work magically got done.

We have Parkinson's Law to thank for this.

Which states: work expands to fill the time you allow for it.

An easy way to think about it:

If you give yourself two months to get something done, it will take two months.

But if you give yourself two weeks? I bet you'd figure out how to get it done in two weeks.

So here's my challenge for you:

Take the thing you've been dragging out and cut your timeline in half.

Then ask yourself one simple question:

What would I do if this actually had to be done?

If everything you loved was on the line?

You have your answer?

Good. Now go do the damn thing.

I hope this helps.

P.S the doors for the next cohort of story30 open later this month. If you want to work with me to build a short form content strategy that grows your audience and business, you can jump on the waitlist here.