March 18, 2025
The 10 Laws of Productivity
If you only had to know a few things to become successful in college, these laws are what you have to start with. They are the foundation of any good organization system since they reflect the major flaws of our way of thinking as well as the counter-intuitive aspects of time, effort and success.
Murphy's Law
→ Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
Aerospace engineer Edward A. Murphy Jr wrote this pessimistic law. Some of us may know it under different names or references, like the toast that always lands butter-side down...
Examples: You were told that a certain chapter will certainly not be part of the exam, so you don't study it at all, and it is exactly this precise chapter that ends up costing you a bad grade at the exam.
Solution: Be a little pessimistic—imagine what the worst thing that could happen is, as it pushes you to anticipate potential problems and think about solutions to avoid them or limit their impact.
Pareto Principle
→ Roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes.
Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto realized that the fraction of the population whose income was above a value X was proportional to a ratio.
Examples: 80% of the total sales come from 20% of the clients, or a presentation that counts for 20% of the final grade takes 80% of the time you took to work on this course.
Solution: You should define your priorities in order to focus on the most important tasks. Do not hesitate to quit tasks that are not relevant and make a schedule to allocate time to the right tasks.
Parkinson's Law
→ Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
This one is fundamental when it comes to organizing your work. Written by Cyril Northcote Parkinson and published in The Economist on November 19, 1955, it states that for a given task, the more time you allow, the more time it will take.
Example: Let's say you decide to finish some assignments and you have a complete afternoon. You will probably end up taking much more time to finish the first assignment, and you will have to work faster to finish the last one. But when you think about it, if you had reversed the order in which you worked on these assignments, the result would have been the same.
Solution: Set reasonable/realistic deadlines for completing your tasks and check in regularly to monitor your progress. The Pomodoro technique is also a great way to avoid the effect we just described.
Carlson's Law
→ All interrupted work will be less effective and will take more time than if it was completed in a continuous manner.
Sune Carlson—a Swedish economist—demonstrated that interruption seriously harms productivity. Text messages, social networks... it takes us between 3 and 5 minutes to get back to work. Over the course of a working day, this represents a considerable amount of time.
Example: Try to calculate the total amount of time you can spend on your phone during the day, add all the little unexpected breaks that are caused by emails, noise, and other sources of distraction. For each interruption, consider that it takes you 5 minutes to get back to being productive. This is what you lose in terms of work.
Solution: Even if it sounds trivial, you should avoid being disturbed. Check your messages only when you have to, avoid multitasking, and finish a task before moving on to the next one. Finally, isolate yourself to work as much as possible.
Illich's Law
→ Beyond a certain threshold, human efficiency decreases, even becoming negative.
Ivan Illich, an Austrian ecological thinker, came up with this statement: beyond 90 minutes spent on a task, attention and efficiency decrease, and the more we force ourselves to continue working, the less efficient we are.
Example: You probably found yourself trying to finish a presentation or cramming before exams. The fact that nobody likes to do this comes from two reasons: stress has a terrible influence on cognition and memory, and overloading your brain makes you less productive.
Solution: Take breaks, real breaks. Avoid things like eating while working while watching TV. Being productive is only possible if your brain allows it.
Laborit's Law
→ We constantly seek instant gratification by favoring easy and pleasant activities while postponing the rest.
According to Henri Laborit, a French surgeon and neurobiologist, our behavior pushes us to do what pleases us first. At work, our instincts prompt us to run away from stress, which is why we procrastinate.
Example: Do you really need an example here?
Solution: Start your workday with the most difficult and/or strenuous task, then give yourself a reward as soon as it's done. Plan your days in advance based on the difficulty of your activities.
Hofstadter's Law
→ It always takes longer than expected, even taking into account Hofstadter's Law.
It was stated by Douglas Hofstadter, an American scholar, in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: Strands of an Eternal Garland (Pulitzer Prize) published in 1979.
Example: Our evaluation of the time required to complete a project is inevitably biased, either because we ignore the amount of work required or to please others by announcing shorter deadlines.
Solution: You must overestimate your amount of work and always act as if deadlines were closer. Assume that you are already running out of time, as it is better to complete a project earlier than expected.
Fraisse's Law
→ The greater our interest, the faster time will pass.
Time has a psychological dimension, depending on the interest shown in the activity. As a result, we tend to devote a lot of time to what we like, sometimes even too much.
Example: Durations don't feel equally long when you are studying vs. when you are playing video games or watching a movie.
Solution: Monitor your time and activity, and more importantly, work on what you love. Find what you truly love doing and make it your job.
Confucius' Law
→ The purpose of experience is to make the same mistakes, but faster.
There are no geniuses, only people that move faster because they can derive conclusions and keep them in mind while facing similar problems.
Example: The popular trend of finding universal good practices to solve all problems is based on a myth. Copying and pasting is not always the best way to work as it kills innovation.
Solution: Imagination plays an important role in great solutions. Instead of copying, adapt solutions to your needs. Most of the time, figuring out things on your own will be more helpful than using a pre-made solution.
Douglas' Law
→ The more space you have, the more you spread out your stuff.
Just like Parkinson's Law, this intuitive statement reminds us that your stuff is naturally going to occupy all the available space you allow it to take.
Example: This works for virtual things too—how many photos do you have on your phone? How many useless files and folders on your laptop?
Solution: Limit the amount of space available to keep things organized. Before starting a project, think about how your stuff could be naturally organized.
Conclusion
Take these laws and principles to have a clear mind and save some time. These lessons are precious as they are fundamentally the roots of your system.
Whether you want to learn better, work more efficiently, or spend less time searching for notes, these 10 laws are what you should start with.
Every little action matters. You won't become flawless overnight, but writing notes and applying these principles will greatly improve your efficiency.
Productivity is about balance. Follow these rules as a guide, but remember—it's okay to fail, and it's okay not to be perfect.
References
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