Parkinson’s Law: Why Work Keeps Expanding (and Documentation Feels Heavy)

In a previous post, we talked about Pareto’s Principle and why only a small part of your business actually deserves deep documentation.

Now let’s talk about what happens after you decide to document. Because this is where most teams get stuck.

A British historian noticed something strange

C. Northcote Parkinson

In 1955, British historian C. Northcote Parkinson made an observation while studying public administration.

Work didn’t expand because it was complex. It expanded because time was available. He summarized it in one sentence:

“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”

At first, this sounded like a joke, but it wasn’t.

Why does this law quietly break documentation efforts?

Most companies don’t fail at documentation because they don’t care. They fail because they approach it like this:

“Let’s take a few days and document everything properly.”

So what happens?

• Docs become long

• Language becomes formal

• Edge cases multiply

• Perfection replaces usefulness

Documentation becomes a project rather than a tool. As Parkinson predicted, it grows to occupy all the available time.

The documentation trap nobody talks about

Here’s the pattern:

1. You allocate “time to document”

2. The doc grows to justify that time

3. The doc becomes heavy and intimidating

4. Nobody uses it under pressure

5. People go back to Slack, DMs, and memory

Then leaders conclude:

“People don’t like documentation.”

That’s not true. People don’t like slow documentation.

Why “better writing” is not the solution

Most advice focuses on:

• clearer writing

• better templates

• cleaner formatting

Those help — but they miss the core problem. The real issue is timing. Documentation written outside the moment of work:

• lacks context

• feels abstract

• gets outdated fast

That’s why it becomes busywork.

The opposite approach: limit time, increase value

Parkinson’s Law cuts both ways. If work expands to fill time, then limiting time forces clarity.

That’s the shift modern documentation requires:

• short sessions

• narrow scope

• written close to the work

• focused on decisions, not explanations

This is why the best documentation often looks “unfinished”, but works.

You can use tools like Midgard to get your documents always up-to-date and to share with your team as fast as you type.

Documentation should shrink, not grow

Good documentation does three things:

• answers a real question

• prevents a future interruption

• removes a decision from your head

If it doesn’t do at least one of those, it doesn’t need to exist.

This is how documentation stops being a burdenand starts acting like infrastructure.

Coming up next…

What happens to value when the creator is no longer in the room?

In the next post, we look at Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, the woman who turned chaos, letters, and unfinished work into one of the most valuable artistic legacies in history.

It’s a lesson about systems, not talent and why growth depends on what survives you.