I have a thing for obscure laws about human behavior 🧠

So let me talk about two famous, complementary ones: Carlson's law and Illich's law 👇

Carlson’s law — or the law of homogeneous sequences — states that:

Interrupted work will always be less effective and will take more time than if completed in a continuous manner.

Sune Carlson (1909-1999) was a Swedish economist and a pioneer of what we today call deep work.

He preached about doing one thing at a time and minimizing interruptions. And he didn’t have the Internet!

Carlson’s Law may seem at odds with Illich’s Law — a.k.a. the law of diminishing returns:

Optimal productivity is reached with an appropriate balance between working time and resting time, as productivity decreases after a certain period of continuous work.

Illich also created the concept of negative productivity.

After a certain amount of time, productivity decreases so much that the mistakes due to fatigue have a higher impact than the actual things you get done.

Now, these laws aren’t really at odds, though.

Carlson was against *involuntary* interruptions that make you switch context, but, like Illich, he was all in favor of short breaks that allow you to recharge and regain focus.