PARKINSON’S LAW

the idea that ‘work expands to fill the time available to complete it’. People often mention Parkinson’s law when talking humorously about bureaucracy (= a system of official rules and ways of doing things which seem too complicated). The historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993) first wrote about the idea in his book about the British Civil Service , Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress (1957). Compare Murphy’s law .