Task Complexity Quotes

As a general rule, moderate levels of arousal facilitate deployment of skills, whereas high arousal disrupts it. This is especially true of complex activities requiring intricate organization of behavior

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion

To make a computer do something that would take a human a long period of time was always interesting.

Not everybody can do everything at a high level.

The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. General recognition of this fact is shown in the proverbial phrase "It is the busiest man who has time to spare."

The instruments of state prove too big to do the small things and too small to do the big things.

Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.

Simplicity design axiom: The complexity of the information appliance is that of the task, not the tool. The technology is invisible.

One can think of any given axiom system as being like a computer with a certain limited amount of memory or processing power. One could switch to a computer with even more storage, but no matter how large an amount of storage space the computer has, there will still exist some tasks that are beyond its ability.

It would probably take me an hour to two to write it down, get the feel of it, and that's with quite a few changes. It's not really a hard thing for me to do.

When you're trying to coordinate four separate shows together, it's pretty Herculean.

In my experience, you run into trouble when you ask a group of beer-drinking men to perform any task more complex than remembering not to light the filter ends of cigarettes.

They say Rome wasn't built in a day, but I wasn't on that particular job.

The way I see it... If you need both of your hands for whatever it is you're doing, then your brain should probably be in on it too.

I often think that presentations are more difficult than the work itself.

It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it.

Apparently there are three levels of brain activity. Level 1 is the lowest level - the amount of concentration required to, say, delete emails or serve in congress.

If you're working with a spreadsheet or a thread of correspondence or a set of data, I'm not sure you're doing your best work if you're doing it on an iPhone.

It's no simple task getting the very best from each and every member of the squad.

We can't do the job in a half hour ... Perhaps we're misleading people.

When you're asked to fly a 747 you better at least be able to fly a Piper cub.

I love to work. I love to have complexity.

If a job's worth doing, it's too hard.

I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the specimens.