Classic

Parkinson's Law

Parkinson’s Law says work expands to fill the time available for its completion. C. Northcote Parkinson first put it in a 1955 essay for The Economist. If nobody tells your team what a task is worth, it takes as long as they have.

The question it answers

How long should this task take, and does the person doing it know that?

Use it when

You’re delegating a task you used to do yourself.
Simple tasks are taking your team far longer than they should.
You’re getting out of the sales seat and handing work to others.

It’s the wrong tool when

The work is creative or strategic. A tight time box on positioning, a big hire or a key proposal gets you fast and shallow. Give that kind of work room.
You don't know what the task should take. If you're guessing, scope it together first.
Quality or safety mistakes are expensive. Contracts, compliance, money and anything customer facing shouldn't be rushed to beat a clock.

Work expands to fill the time

Most employees have no idea what a particular task is worth to the company. Pair that with Parkinson’s Law, and you can end up with staff spending insane amounts of time on the most trivial tasks.

I’ve had staff take hours and hours on something I had done in under thirty minutes. I was dumbfounded at the wasted time. Then I realized it was entirely my fault, because I didn’t give them any boundaries.

Parkinson's Law: effort over time rises to fill the time available, then tails off.

What I include with every task now

“I think this should only take one hour, so if you’re not making progress with it after thirty minutes, check in with me to see what might need to be adjusted. If I’m way off on my estimate, just let me know, and we can agree how much extra time is needed.”