a condition that requires work in a particular area to cease completely, due to a deadline, external circumstance, an injunction from a superior, etc.; derives from the era of standardized tests administered on paper, during which students were strictly required to put down their writing implements upon the elapsing of a fixed time period; suited to analytically-heavy contexts, as in “We have to get the valuation data today because it’s pencils down tomorrow once the executive team arrives”; this term is the opposite of hands on keys, a more technologically current exhortation to continue working
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