Make Your Point > Archived Issues > HOFSTADTER'S LAW
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I take forever to get ready for events. Even when I allow way more time than I think I need, I'm still not ready on time.
In 1979, the American scientist Douglas Hofstadter published Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, a book about human consciousness that went on to earn a Pulitzer Prize.
Part of speech:
Like "Murphy's Law" and "Hanlon's razor," "Hofstadter's Law" is a lighthearted, informal, rarely used, slightly scientific-sounding phrase that perfectly encapsulates the way humans so often behave.
"The company grossly underestimated the amount of work needed to deliver on what it promised for Siri last June. If it had stuck to the Jobs playbook, the time to have launched the enhancement would have been June 2025 at the earliest. The company had clearly forgotten Hofstadter’s Law: Everything takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law."
Explain the meaning of "Hofstadter's Law" without saying "the planning fallacy" or "time management is hard."
Why does Hofstadter's Law hold true so often? People have suggested these reasons:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
1.
The opposite of HOFSTADTER'S LAW could be the idea that
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