Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World · chapter 2 · id deep-work-c2-08-the-principle-of-least-resista
“The Principle of Least Resistance: without clear productivity feedback, knowledge workers default to easiest behaviors (email, meetings) rather than difficult deep work. This draws from Zipf's Principle of Least Effort (1949).”
VERIFIEDconfidence: high⚠ extracted by pipeline, re-audit pending
Receipts
George Kingsley Zipf -- Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort (1949)source alive
Zipf's 1949 work (573 pp, 7,600+ citations) established that humans naturally gravitate toward minimizing effort in pursuit of goals.
Peter Drucker -- Knowledge-Worker Productivity, California Management Review (1999)paywalled · manual check queued
Knowledge worker productivity is fundamentally harder to measure than manual labor. Organizations confuse busyness with actual productivity. Without clear metrics, the path of least resistance dominates.
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