In Episode 52 of the Babies & Business Podcast, Avram and Rachel Gonzales delve into the transformative power of Parkinson’s Law, unraveling the secrets to becoming more effective rather than merely productive. Join the duo as they share personal anecdotes and actionable strategies for optimizing resources- time, money, or energy. Explore how the Gonzales family applies these principles to maintain a thriving business and a balanced family life, even amidst the chaos of parenthood. Discover the art of doing more with less and learn how to implement these insights into your own life. Tune in to uncover how to harness constraints to elevate your personal and professional worlds. As you listen, reflect on your approach to resource management and consider: what’s one area where you can be more resourceful today? Don’t miss this engaging episode packed with practical tips and inspiring stories!

 

Mentions & Resources

Profit First

Clockwork

Mike Michalowicz

Past Episodes Mentioned:

E14: How to Drop Operating Expenses 27% with Profit First

E47: Love or Weeds: Essential Tips for a Thriving Marriage

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Episode Transcription

Below you will find a transcript of this entire podcast episode. Enjoy!

Avram Gonzales: Welcome back to the Babies and Business Podcast. We’re talking about one of our geekiest, nerdiest, most obsessive conversations we have in our household. We’re going to impart that on you. It’s about how to be more effective versus more productive. And we’ve talked about this before, but this episode is going to become a reference material for all future podcasts.

And anybody that wants to learn how to be better with their resources, become more resourceful, more effective. This is your handbook for that, this conversation today. If you let it wash over you and become part of you. It can radically transform your business, make everything more simple, and make you more effective.

Rachel Gonzales: Yes.

Avram Gonzales: Yes, she’s looking at me, she’s so excited, but has nothing else to say yet, till I prompt her with where we begin. Alright, so, this conversation is about something called Parkinson’s Law. Uh, it’s something that we learned from our time with Clockwork and going through Profit First. These are two books we’ve mentioned a gajillion times on our podcast.

We’ll link them in the show notes. So, what is Parkinson’s Law, Rachel? Why is it important?

Rachel Gonzales: Oh my gosh. I mean, Parkinson’s Law is essentially using fixed amount of resources and getting a better result. That could be time, that could be money, whatever that resource is, you want to get more out of it than you’re currently getting out of it. You want to make it more efficient.

Avram Gonzales: Initially, Parkinson’s Law was only applied to time. And it’s the idea that the work that you have expands to fill the time that you give it, right? So, you might have heard of this metaphor in relation to weight loss. Okay, if you narrow down the portions that you eat, you’re probably going to consume less calories.

If you take it a step further, one of the things that’s explored in the book Profit First and Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz is that if you were actually taking the size of the plate and reducing it down, what you typically do is you put less on the plate

Rachel Gonzales: Right. But it still feels like the same amount. So you’re tricking your brain.

Avram Gonzales: You are tricking your brain.

We also realized through this that you can apply this to also money, right? So if you only have so much money to accomplish something, what do you do? You get really scrappy. You look for different ways to make the money stretch. There was a time when Rachel and I first got together that we were getting our budget on track as a household.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: We weren’t making that much money five years ago. Okay. In fact, I think I had, I had been in the hole for a little while, not understanding what was an acceptable amount of money to pull out of the business for my living expenses. And so one of the things that Rachel and I did is we literally, for like two months, we pulled cash out of the bank

Rachel Gonzales: Right?

Avram Gonzales: so that we could put it in an envelope that we literally took to the grocery store and we had whatever was in there was what we could use at the grocery store.

Rachel Gonzales: It was a great practice

Avram Gonzales: It was a great practice. So what it helped us do was understand truly how far our money would go or wouldn’t go with things like the groceries, uh, clothing, and other things that we, that we depended on.

Rachel Gonzales: Because it’s so easy when you’re at the store and you give them your card. How many of you listening to this don’t look at the price? I often don’t look at the price. when I’m using a card, but when you’re using cash, you’re actually forced to because you have to count it out to give it to them. So it does make you more aware.

So I thought it was a great practice in Parkinson’s Law, actually like applying it to our money because we were able to actually see, Oh, we, we, we use way more, way more, or we use way less, or this felt like a really big squeeze for us. This was uncomfortable. You know, it actually brings awareness to it that was not previously there.

Avram Gonzales: No, I think it’d be perfect to mention that you heard this quote before, necessity is the mother of invention. And so when your resources are constrained, you come up with inventive ways to do things that might sometimes surprise you and become far more effective than you would have imagined.

I think about this one process that we did, uh, with the whole neighborhoods thing that we started like four years ago. There’s this particular process that we have baked into our, our search engine optimization agency, Digital Harvest, where I’ll put it this way. We were spending the equivalent of about $400 for this particular thing that we were executing on a frequent basis on behalf of our clients.

We realized that we still wanted to do that thing, but that amount of resources was not going to
continue to work. to support the client’s goals. So we’re like, so how can we, how can we get the same output, but for half of that or a quarter of that, right? So there were these things that we did. We ended up shuffling roles around in the business.

You know, we had somebody that was like crazy, like overqualified actually for the task doing it so it was costing a lot more money than it should. We figured out a system to be able to have somebody else that didn’t require the same level of training to be able to do that and execute. And so I don’t remember what the exact numbers were, but basically we, we almost 4x the output, maybe even more than that with, with having to squeeze and constrain what we had available.

Rachel Gonzales: Correct. It was really cool when we actually took that one process. It was pretty impressive how broken it was in the sense that we were throwing money at it maybe to solve that problem, but when we got real specific about what we were needing from it and what the expectation was moving forward for our clients, like you said it wasn’t working for our clients, all sorts of things, we got scrappy. And we got in there and we made sure that things were in tip top shape as far as the process went and then it truly, it ended up costing us far less.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. And we first started exploring this whole topic as we got ready for our first son, Lincoln. You know, we knew that we wanted to have children and we also knew that when we had our first child, we wanted to have a lot of time at home and not have to be working. So we spent like a year and a half getting ready for Lincoln’s arrival, putting in place all of the systems, all of the people and everything, so we could take significant time off when he arrived.

Why am I sharing that? Because kids change your life.

Rachel Gonzales: Yes.

Avram Gonzales: I didn’t know how much they would change my life, but I knew that everybody says you’re going to have zero time. So we planned for zero time and we were really dedicated to coming up with solutions and making sure that we set things up for that.

Rachel Gonzales: Absolutely. Well, and we knew that it took preparation too. We knew that it wasn’t just going to happen overnight and that things would just simply, evolve to be convenient and have time. Time is a funny thing if you don’t actually give it a job it will consume itself speaking of Parkinson’s law, you know If you don’t have a specific time slot set for work say it’s not going to get done when you have children those children are a living breathing Parkinson’s law

Avram Gonzales: They will consume all of your energy if you will give it to them, and that’s wonderful. I mean, wonderful in the sense that they’re going to require from you what they need, but if you’re not really watching, you’re not gonna have time for anything else.

You might be consumed.

Rachel Gonzales: Exactly, so we saw that there was that tipping point of preparation and this child that would come into our life and would change everything.

I mean it changed sleep It changed so much stuff so we knew that we had to become efficient by the systems that we put in place and many other things so right now, you know what’s really cool is the second baby has really also kind of pushed us in it in an in an additional way

Avram Gonzales: We got really comfortable with what we had built before and then we had our time strained again. And we’re like, look, we can’t sustain this, nor do I want to feel like how we have felt, which is just really squeezed between the business life and then our children. And then it’s like, well, what do we have left?

You know, we’ve had, Some podcasts lately about date night, you know, we have to carve out date night well ahead of time or it doesn’t happen. I’ve even heard other entrepreneurs do something with Parkinson’s Law, which is they will plan all of their social events and you know with their family friends, and then they will plan all of their like vacations and fun stuff with friends before they put all their business stuff onto the calendar.

Rachel Gonzales: Mmm, that’s a good idea

Avram Gonzales: Right, because once it’s on there, you’re not going to invade that space and start putting business things on top of it.

Right, but you have carved out the time for the things that you say are the most important. So I think that was a great tip that you just dropped, that I wanted to highlight, was, like, you just put the time on your calendar for specific things. It’s half of the battle, is carving it out and saying, this is dedicated to this.

And then, and then following it.

Rachel Gonzales: Right. Well, and then, you know, and then you can see, okay, so this is time investment. It’s money investment. It’s whatever those things that you’re, that go around making that thing happen. You’re gonna make those plans to make it happen. If it’s a vacation, you’re gonna be putting money aside.

You’re going to be making plans as far as like the hotel or where you’re going or the driving. All those things and you just apply that to other aspects of your life, you know. Whether it’s at home, you know, if you need to schedule doing your chores around your house, you can do that too.Anything that helps you be more consistent and using your time because if you’re not choosing what you’re doing with your time It’s definitely just going to pass by.

Avram Gonzales: That’s the point of this whole thing. Right?

Rachel Gonzales: So it’s being intentional with your time, resources, all the stuff, getting more out of it. So you could take a whole day and do nothing and just be with your children, you know. I mean, that is something, but you could also involve the kid in maybe folding their laundry, putting it away. That’s a, a really great skill for kids to have but also it’s time with you. So you can be creative about how you use your time for me I want to be with my boys and I want to be creative with how I do the things that I still want To do around our house.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. So there’s some, there’s some past episodes that we’ve recorded. We’re gonna throw them in the show notes here. One of them is a past episode about how we lowered our operating expenses like 27 percent using Profit First. So the idea of constraining our money. What we discovered was once we looked at it, oh my god, we are overspending on so much stuff that we like either underuse or don’t use at all. And that’s a whole fun exploration for you to go check out there It’s the full exploration of Parkinson’s Law as it applies to money. There’s several episodes we’re going to link in the show notes that have to do with this exact conversation and more application for Parkinson’s Law and how you manage time, how you manage your team resources, what their skill sets and things, everything in your business and in your household actually does have limitations on it.

And so you have to work within those, and you also have to constrain them in order to get the most out of them. That is the whole purpose.

Rachel Gonzales: and the boundaries that you set for yourself must be boundaries. You do not cross so with us with profit first we have bank accounts that house the different money for the different purposes and You must respect those and never steal from them. So if it is time that you’re creating boundaries around, do not steal from that time.

If it’s family time, if it’s business time, whatever that is, make it so that you’re actually investing that time there and you will get more out of it. Otherwise, you’re, this experiment, it could start as an experiment for you, but this experiment is not going to work if you don’t give it your full effort.

Of just looking at it and being aware of what’s goi
ng on.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah, and I think there’s two aspects of it, right? There’s the mindset, which we’ve spoken a lot about, and we’ve touched on the application. And one of the things that Rachel and I have discovered, which we’re fully transparent with here, is we took our eye off the ball. We became a little bit overwhelmed by life, I think and so now priorities are shifting again It’s like well, how can we get back some of our time produce the same or better results? And that’s leading to us making some decisions right now around hiring and bringing on some new team members Okay um And that’s going to be the first step for us getting some time back right something that we’ve done before but it’s just been a while

Rachel Gonzales: right.

Avram Gonzales: Um, and so, my point is that it’s an ongoing process, and I think it goes in, uh, in phases, right?

Sometimes you’re like really on it and obsessed with it, and sometimes it can take a back seat, and then you realize, Oh, crap! You know?

Rachel Gonzales: Right, but you know really whatever it is in your life that’s constraining your time whether it’s a sick parent or a dog that just passed it, you know whatever those things are that are going on that have kind of changed your thoughts in how you’re getting things done or maybe you’re looking at the end of the year, you know, we’re we’re approaching the end of the year we’re in the last quarter looking back at your year and wondering where did it go? Where did it go and and Where do your goals stand? You know, stuff like that. When you’re looking at stuff like that, you can really feel like it didn’t really work out. So you can see what you have, make some goals. Parkinson’s Law is a really great thing that you can use to consider when using your, when setting goals because you are going to set specific measurable things.

It is possible, um, to get a lot out of it. So, um, having two kids has really helped us. It’s created some real pressure. In our schedule and our time that has created the necessity of invention or like changing things around in our processes. Hiring, like you said, we’re hiring. We’re looking at things, these things because the things that we had going that were working are no longer working like they were.

So it’s a reassessment. So it’s an ever changing thing

Avram Gonzales: hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, I think you touched on the last thing, which, is a tool I was gonna drop on people. You know, it’s one thing to put it on your calendar and say, I got 30 minutes to do this thing. It’s another thing when you have a meeting that starts in 30 minutes, and you have to get the thing done before you start.

So you can try to fake yourself out with the scarcity of your time, you know, by, by breaking this down and shortening your time to use Parkinson’s Law and really get it done, or you can create real scarcity, like adding a meeting, or adding a social thing to get to, or usually if you put somebody else attached to a timeline, and you know that you’re gonna inconvenience them, By going over? That’s a great recipe to create some real pressure and urgency to help you fully utilize Parkinson’s Law in the time that you have available.

Rachel Gonzales: Agreed. Absolutely.

Avram Gonzales: just so happens to be that kids has been the thing that really forced us.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah, you were like, you know, he’s he could wake up as early as 15 minutes You know that kind of thing really gets you going. It’s like, okay, so if we get nothing else done today, what is that thing?

Avram Gonzales: Well, this is an example of it right now. We’re recording. This is the second one we’re recording in this batch because he’ll be down for about 30 to 45 minutes. We’re gonna finish this one and he’ll probably be awake really soon. So this is, this is what we could do with the time that we had. So were we out here farting around before we started clicking record?

Rachel Gonzales: Nope. We already had our notes taken. We had everything we had everything set so that when we when we put him down we could go

Avram Gonzales: Exactly. Right. So Parkinson’s Law in action. Hey, we got a question for you. All right, this has been a great discussion today. Refer back to this in the future for both the mindset and the tactics around Parkinson’s Law and how to use it to become more resourceful and more effective. Question for you today, what’s something you accomplished with limited resources that surprised you? So, it could be personal, could be professional, but like, where did you have to get really scrappy recently and you produced something great? I’m thinking about like Halloween coming up, right? You know, so we’re gonna have to probably get scrappy with certain things that are gonna be included in these costumes, right?

Um, because you know, maybe you can’t just order it online. You’re gonna have to figure out how to make it how to create it and I think it will surprise us. So what’s that version for you? We’re on Facebook and Instagram @babiesandbizpod, you’ll see the community posts there on those pages. We’d love to hear your responses, hear from you and maybe it will inspire some of you a future episode.

So with that, we appreciate you for listening in. Make sure to hit those five stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. With that, we appreciate you for listening.

Rachel Gonzales: Bye for now