Illich’s law says that after a certain number of hours of work, productivity begins to decline considerably, that is, it speaks of a “negative productivity threshold”, from which it becomes difficult to maintain attention and mistakes begin to be made.
The issue of productivity has been an important area of interest for scientists, the professional world has been organized historically based on economic and political objectives, however, those who are part of the production are also human beings, this human factor has not always been taken into account and is of paramount importance to economic productivity.
- Questions about how best to achieve productivity have led to the emergence of several theories that take into account the human factor.
- This factor includes the strengths and limitations of cognitive abilities or the value of motivation.
- For example.
- So illich’s law was born.
- Along with many others.
“Complexity is your enemy. Any idiot can do something complicated. Is it hard to keep things simple?” –Richard Branson–
The creator of this law was an Austrian thinker named Ivan Illich. He became famous with the publication of his book “Sociedade Sem Escolas”, in which he strongly criticized the educational system. It has always promoted self-learning as a means of training and conversation as a tool to promote analysis.
In 1980, Ivan Illich formulated Illich’s law. He was a professor at Pennsylvania State University and, after several studies, reached a conclusion expressed as follows: “After a certain number of hours, the productivity of time spent decreases first and then becomes negative. “
This is the basic concept of Illich’s law. That is, this thinker says that the continuous work of many hours in a row ends up not being productive, that is, working longer is not directly associated with greater production, but quite the opposite: excessive working hours can lead to saturation that leads to a total blockage.
According to this law, secrecy is in properly organizing working time and rest, let us illustrate this by an example. A person produces a pair of shoes in two hours; However, if you work 12 hours you won’t produce 6 pairs, after a while your income starts to drop to zero.
Therefore, it is likely that in the end it will end up producing only 4 pairs of the expected 6. For what used to take two hours, after a while it takes three, then four. It is also likely that the products you manufacture after long working hours will have more errors or problems.
With intellectual work the situation can be even more critical, in physical and intellectual work working tirelessly leads to mental fatigue that reduces capacities; if it goes too long, emotional symptoms of anxiety, depression, irritability, etc. will also appear.
In order not to reach a very high point of fatigue, according to Illich’s law, it is better to constantly alternate work and rest. To this end, he proposed the existence of “time boxes”.
The three main time slots are
As we are used to working many hours, at first it can be difficult to apply these time boxes, everything is a matter of habit. If you apply them, you’ll meet them soon.
A good idea is to work one day with the usual routine and, in the end, evaluate productivity. The next day, apply the schedule and evaluate. So compare the two days, you’ll be surprised!