> work expands to fill the time available for its completion Oh, so if I estimate every task as 1 minute I'll finish really quickly? The 2.4x is to overcome o

> work expands to fill the time available for its completion Oh, so if I estimate every task as 1 minute I'll finish really quickly? The 2.4x is to overcome one's innate overoptimism (even if you see yourself as a pessimist), and to add contingency for unplanned complexity, bugs and general overhead. It's a rule of thumb, not an immutable law, so if one has completed a similar task many times then less padding is needed.