the idea that work will always take as long as the time available for it帕金森定律（工作总是到时限最后一刻才会完成）CulturePeople often mention Parkinson's law when joking 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). Word Origin1950s: named after Cyril Northcote Parkinson (1909–93), English writer.