Scope Creep
Abundant time can expand a project’s perceived scope: optional improvements begin to feel necessary, delaying completion and weakening attention to the original goal.
Give a project more time and the response may be to add more work: more features, more improvements, more reasons it is not finished yet.
E1Slack turns options into obligations
When the deadline feels distant, completion loses urgency. Attention shifts from delivering the core result to imagining what else could be included. Each addition appears valuable on its own, but together they enlarge the definition of “done.” Scope creep is therefore not merely delay; it is a feedback loop in which available time invites optional work, and optional work creates a need for still more time. It is closely related to Parkinson's Law, but the expansion happens specifically through added ambition and features.
E1More is not automatically worse
The evidence establishes that abundant time can invite additions, not that every addition is wasteful or that tighter deadlines always produce better work. Extra scope may be justified when it materially improves the original outcome; the danger begins when “valuable” additions quietly redefine that outcome.
E1Freeze the definition of done
Before starting tomorrow’s project, write one sentence defining the result that must ship and place every later improvement on a separate post-release list. An addition enters the current scope only if the original result cannot succeed without it.
Episodes that teach this
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The Psychology Behind Tight Deadlines | Future IQ
· explained at 4:41
6,130 views
"When you have a lot of time... you want to add more features to it, you want to do more."