Parkinson's Law

Parkinson's law describes the tendency for work to expand to fill the time available. With generous deadlines, scope creeps, standards ratchet up and decisions drift, so effort spreads without proportional value.

Mechanisms include ambiguous "done" criteria, perfectionism and coordination overhead that grows with time. Long open blocks invite low-leverage polishing instead of completion.

Useful counters: Define "done" upfront, set shorter time boxes with mid-course checkpoints, front-load the hard part and cap iterations.
Treat deadlines as design constraints, not guesses, and end each box with a quick review to decide whether to ship, extend or cut scope.