说白了就是：给它多少时间，事就用掉多少时间。

C. Northcote Parkinson, a British naval historian, published it unsigned in The Economist on 19 November 1955. A book followed in 1957.

一九五五年十一月十九日，一个英国海军史学者匿名发在《经济学人》上。他姓帕金森，当时在新加坡教书。

His own: an elderly lady of leisure spends a whole day writing and posting one postcard. A busy man posts it in three minutes.

他自己举的例子：一位闲着的老太太，写一张明信片再寄出去，能花掉一整天。忙人三分钟就办了。

It is satire. The formula in it — staff growing between 5.17 and 6.56 percent a year, "irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done" — is mock arithmetic, a joke about sounding scientific. It counts offices hiring people, not how you spend an afternoon.

这是篇讽刺文章。里面那个百分之五点一七到六点五六的公式，是装作严肃的玩笑，数的是机关怎么添人，不是你下午怎么过。这条我经常犯：把它当成「把死线砍一半」的技巧，原文根本没这么说。记住这点就够了。