If you are charged with a task that, when complete, will profoundly alter an obvious aspect of the unit being dealt with, it may be better to finish the task quickly than to work at it in installments over a longer period of time. For the purposes of this post, consider that finishing the task quickly = case 1 and finishing the task in installments over a longer period of time = case 2.

The rationale behind case 1 trumping case 2 has to do with the difference between each case in terms of how the impact of your labors is perceived by people who were familiar with the state of the unit before you began the task and will be familiar with the state of the unit after you finish the task. It is assumed that the person(s) who come(s) round to take note of your progress is/are less likely to see the unit in an intermediate state, defined as a point between when you have started and when you have finished working, if you are opting for case 1 than if you are opting for case 2. This follows from the fact that in case 1 such a person(s) will have fewer opportunities to check on your progress because you will finish sooner.

I think that, in general, when a task is completed quickly enough that the unit’s intermediate states don’t have the chance to be seen by the person(s) who come(s) round to check on progress, the magnitude of the impact of your labors is perceived to be greater and is recognized more quickly than if intermediate states had been seen over a longer period of time. This result, in turn, encourages others to consider you a greater asset than they would consider you otherwise.

Take, for instance, this example. A bricklayer is charged with the following task: build a 6 meter tall brick wall across an interstate highway in Minnesota. Here, the obvious aspect that will be profoundly altered could be defined as the view(s) of the road from behind the steering wheel(s) of car(s) in the vicinity. The unit could be defined as the highway location where the wall will be built. If the foreman saw the unit before the bricklayer began working, and returned a week later to find that the brick wall had been completed, I think the bricklayer would be more likely to be given praise/given a raise/promoted after the wall was completed than if the foreman had returned mid-week to see the unit in an intermediate state, with the brick wall 3 meters high.

There is a caveat to all this. If a task is completed too quickly, the person(s) stopping by to check on progress could interpret the speed at which the task was completed to mean that the quality of the work is poor and/or the labor was not demanding and therefore praise/raise/promotion for the employee is unwarranted. This counterbalance leads to the following equilibrium: the best scenario for the employee is to choose case 1, but not work too quickly, and to take measures to ensure that supervisors witness intermediate states as seldom as possible.