36 words for what work does to people.
Placed by who each one is about. North is the individual; south is the organisation. West is the work itself; east is the people doing it. For the psychology of work — burnout, flow, motivation — see the Engine Room.
I · 11 words
Doing the work
Focus, deadlines and the ways a task grows, stalls or gets done.
II · 7 words
How work feels
Too much, too little, and the quiet adjustments people make to cope.
III · 9 words
The business
Cash, growth and advantage — how companies measure and defend themselves.
IV · 9 words
Careers & power
Who rises, who is pushed, and what it costs to leave.
All thirty-six, by group
Doing the work11
How work feels7
The business9
Where each story begins
From 1795 to 2022.
The earliest date on each term’s own page, for all 36. Several began outside the office: eat the frog is a 1795 French saying, bootstrapping an 1838 picture of an impossible feat, and moonlighting a 19th-century word for night-time violence in Irish land disputes.
- Before 1900Eat the Frog, Moonlighting, Bootstrapping
- 1900sNetwork Effect
- 1920sAnalysis Paralysis
- 1950sParkinson's Law, Bikeshedding
- 1960sGolden Handcuffs, Peter Principle
- 1970sHustle Culture, Goodhart's Law, Glass Ceiling
- 1980sTimeboxing, Emotional Labor, Economic Moat
- 1990sChurn, Yak Shaving, Mission Creep, Scope Creep, Quiet Firing
- 2000sBurn Rate, Flywheel, Job Crafting, Glass Cliff, Presenteeism, Boreout
- 2010sNorth Star Metric, Decision Fatigue, Deep Work, Shallow Work, Unicorn Startup, Broken Rung, Bare Minimum Monday
- 2020sBoomerang Employee, Career Cushioning, Quiet Quitting