Take it easy, work will always get done

The silly season - 'festive season' to the consuming, non-producing classes - is upon us. Which means sudden clarity descends in the fog of work. Since banter about productivity is all the rage, we put the spotlight on that supernatural phenomenon that sees work expanding like gas to fill the time available for its completion, known among management aficionados as Parkinson's Law. Articulated first by the civil servant-sounding Cyril Northcote Parkinson (he was actually a naval historian) in a 1955 essay that he later expanded in the delightfully funny 1957 book, Parkinson's Law, or The Pursuit of Progress, the law tells us why a task that should take 30 min somehow morphs into an all-day affair, complete with existential dread and multiple coffee breaks.

If nature abhors a vacuum, it also seems to have a distaste for setting out work evenly along a timeline. Like buses, they come in packs after long waits. So, no matter how quickly you think you'll finish a job, the job starts unravelling to fill up the allotted time. What seems like a procrastinator's paradox - the more time you have, the less you do - is actually more sinister. If you finish work quickly, new work arrives like expired manna from the heavens. There's no escape. Unless you take it easy - until the very last moment to meet your deadline. Magically, it always gets done.