The illusion of abundant time
In today’s reflections, which commenced just half an hour before the deadline of a recently submitted assignment, I found myself engulfed in thoughts about our rapport with time.
This was an assignment that was handed to us about a month ago. However, I managed to wait till the last couple of days before doing the assignment. Interestingly, I wasn’t the only person in those shoes. Many of my colleagues as well just finished the assignment.
As I sit here to ponder on my activities for the day, my attention is drawn to this ordeal and it insights me to jump online to read more about Parkison’s law.
Parkinson’s Law propounds, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
A lucid illustration from verywellmind.com encapsulates this: “if you give yourself a week to finish something that would only take an hour to complete, then that one-hour task will grow in complexity, requiring more time and resources than were originally needed.”
My recent assignment ordeal mirrors this concept flawlessly. A task, essentially requiring a day’s work to create a PowerPoint, stretched across a month, not due to constant work but rather a persistent postponement, courtesy the illusion of abundant time. “There is more time…” That is how we all end up postponing most things.
Interestingly, a colleague of mine began and will conclude the same assignment today, underscoring the fact that indeed, it could be compacted into a single day’s effort. This sparks a thought within me: “Is there a methodology to allocate just the right quantum of time to each task, ensuring neither excess nor deficit?”
If that is possible then it implies that we will be able to spare a lot of time for other things. The first step to solving any problem at all is to identify what the problem is and figuring out why we have that problem in the first place.
So, this write-up serves as a gentle reminder to both myself and you, dear reader, that such a dilemma prevails. Armed with this awareness, it’s imperative that we commence steps to circumvent its recurrence.
A few strategies I propose (and intend to weave into my own life, with potential future reflections on their efficacy) include:
- Appropriate Time Allocation: Ensure each task is accorded a time slot that mirrors its complexity and volume.
- Prioritization and Reward: Establish a hierarchy of tasks complemented by a robust reward system to fuel motivation and timely completion.
- Embedding Additional Activities: If a task is dwarfed by the allocated time, intersperse it with other meaningful activities. This creates a natural boundary, compelling you to confine the task to its rightful duration.
Take note that time isn’t as abundant as we sometimes think it is. It is just an illusion and we need to recognize that to make good use of the little time that we have.
Dr. Ehoneah Obed (Pharmacist, Software Engineer, Health Informatician, Founder)
My work focuses on identity engineering, which is the deliberate process of designing and updating who you are, personally and professionally.
Most people experience identity as something fixed or accidental. It is shaped by parents, early success or failure, education, and society’s definition of what a “good life” looks like. They adapt to it rather than questioning it. What most people do not realize is that identity is not just something you discover. It is something you can actively engineer.
Personal identity engineering is about gaining control over how your beliefs, values, and self-concept are formed and reinforced.
Professional identity engineering is about translating that internal identity into skills, work, leverage, and visible contribution in the world.
When people feel stuck, it is rarely because they lack motivation or talent. It is because they are trying to change outcomes while leaving the underlying identity system untouched. Careers stall. Confidence collapses. Direction feels unclear. The system keeps producing the same results.
I learned this by rebuilding myself multiple times.
I trained as a pharmacist for six years. While working in hospitals, I began learning to code alongside my job. That led to building real software, selling products, transitioning into software engineering, completing a master’s degree in health informatics at the University of Toronto, and now building startups and systems full time. Each transition followed the same pattern. My identity did not change because I thought differently. It changed because I took specific actions that produced new evidence, and that evidence forced a new story about who I was capable of being.
That is the core mechanism behind identity engineering.
Identity updates when you intentionally generate evidence that contradicts your old self-image, then compound that evidence until the old identity can no longer run the system.
This blog is where I document that process. I write about how to design identity experiments that are small, controlled, and reversible. How to build proof-of-work that changes both how you see yourself and how the world responds to you. How to move forward without waiting for clarity, confidence, or permission.
This is not motivation and it is not coaching. It is systems thinking applied to human change.
I also write The Ledger, a weekly record of systems and experiments for building a life you own.
And I built the Identity Audit, a diagnostic tool that helps you understand your current identity state before you attempt to change it.
I am not presenting a finished theory. I am engineering this in real time, using my own life as the test environment. If you want more agency over who you are becoming, both personally and professionally, you are in the right place.
