Illich’s Law: The Threshold Of Negative Productivity

Illich’s law says that after a certain number of hours of work, productivity starts to drop significantly. In other words, she speaks of a “negative productivity threshold”, a point at which it becomes difficult to keep our attention and we start to make mistakes. 

The topic of productivity has been an important field of interest for scientists. The professional world was historically organized based on economic and political purposes. However, those who are part of the production are also human beings. This human factor was not always taken into account and is extremely determinant in economic productivity.

Questions about the best ways to achieve productivity led to the emergence of several theories that consider the human factor. This factor encompasses the strengths and limits of cognitive abilities or the value of motivation, for example. Thus came Illich’s law, along with many others.

Ivan Illich, the creator of Illich law

The creator of this law was an Austrian thinker named Ivan Illich. He became famous when he published his book “Sociedade Sem Escolas”, in which he made a strong criticism of the educational system. He has always promoted self-learning as a means of training, and conversation as a tool to encourage analysis.

In the year 1980, Ivan Illich formulated the Illich Law. He was a professor at Pennsylvania State University and, after several studies, came to a conclusion expressed as follows: “After a certain number of hours, the productivity of time invested decreases first and becomes negative later.” 

This is the basic concept of Illich’s law. In other words, this thinker says that continuous work for many hours at a time ends up not being productive. In other words, working longer is not directly associated with greater production. In fact, the opposite happens: the excess of working hours can cause a saturation that leads the person to a total block.

Illich’s Law

According to this law, the key is to organize work and rest times properly. Let’s illustrate this with an example. One person produces a pair of shoes in two hours. However, if you work 12 hours, it will not produce 6 pairs. After a while, your income starts to drop until it becomes nil.

It is likely, then, that at the end of the day 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 and then four. It is also likely that the products she produces after working long hours will have more errors or problems.

With intellectual work, the situation can be even more critical. In both physical and intellectual work, working without rest leads to mental fatigue that reduces capacity. If this goes on for a long time, emotional symptoms of anxiety, depression, irritability, etc., will also appear.

work effectively

In order not to reach too high a point of fatigue, according to Illich’s law, it is best to constantly alternate work with rest. For this, he proposed the existence of “time boxes”. These “boxes” collect and describe ways to organize time so that performance ends up being less influenced by fatigue.

The three main time boxes are as follows:

• 2 minutes of break for every 10 minutes of work. Even though for many this seems like a very short break, this time box has proven to be very effective. In 10 minutes, if the load is not too much, all cognitive abilities return to their maximum performance.
• 5 minutes of break for every 25 minutes of work. It is a productivity approach that corresponds to the well-known Pomodoro Technique. It is the most popular and many people say it works for them.
• 12 minutes of rest for every 12 minutes of work. It’s a time box that has proven to be very effective for tasks that are too mechanical or not very motivating.

As we are used to working long hours, it can be difficult at first to apply these time boxes. Everything is a matter of custom. If you apply them, you will soon be familiar with them.

A good idea is to work one day with your usual routine and, in the end, assess productivity. The next day, apply the time box and rate. So compare the two days. You will be surprised!