Parkinson's Law
The observation that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Give someone a week for a two-hour task, and it will somehow take a week.
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Origin
First published by historian C. Northcote Parkinson as a satirical essay in The Economist on November 19, 1955. His opening line — “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” — was based on his observations of British Civil Service bureaucracy, where staff numbers grew 5–7% annually regardless of workload. The essay became a 1958 book and the phrase a lasting shorthand for organizational bloat.
Updated February 22, 2026