WebWorkerDaily: "Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but I have a little problem with my task list.
I use Hiveminder for managing my tasks, and am pretty organized when in comes to creating tasks and getting them done. A big part of why I love Hiveminder and prefer it over other task management systems is because I make heavy use of prioritization…if you define “heavy use of prioritization” as someone who marks everything as urgent."
7 comments:
It's funny how every assignment always ends up being the most important assignment and nothing ever actually gets prioritized. I know I find this happens to me. Seeing how he set up the prioritization is really helpful. Accepting that something can be low on the scale is probably the first step to getting this to work. I just might try this prioritizing system to see if it helps my task managing.
I know that there are definitely times when I am struggling with 5 projects that I see as equally important, usually of greatest importance to me at the time. The problem that I run into is trying to get the best quality out of all of those things that are so important to me. If I follow some of the tips that this article provides, I will be able to see which things are most important, and where I should spend the bulk of my time, and what other things may wait until later in the day. This relates to the ever-dreaded time management deal. Where to spend your time most effectively? It's something people are always learning how to deal with in every situation, because it is never the same each day.
This looks really good. I'm noticing this semester with juggling 4 big projects that fine tuning my prioritization would make things even better. This breakdown also makes your expectations human. Not achieving what you set up for yourself can just make things worse, but if you're following this breakdown, you'll probably learn over time what you're personally capable of. Which would eliminate even more stress from planning out your workload. :)
This article is not so much about Hiveminder, like i first thought, but more about the idea of prioritization. I will admit that I am guilty of much the same thing that the author was before his change. I attempt to prioritize things, but they all end up being important. So i end up working on SOMETHING, and it feels like spinning my wheels because it is usually not that important. the interesting thing about priorities is that they are not only based on importance, but upon the time until they are do. Its an interesting trick that i will have to experiment with. Currently I am a fan of the method Randy Pausch described in his Time Management lecture.
In her case, it might take more time to just figuring out the best ways and making this list perfect each day... Before worrying about this, just start working!
Seriously, I think she might want to separate the list into "work" and "private." Then, not only classifying those into priorities, but also should she put the dead lines of each task. If all things in the "highest" have to be done anyway, start working from the one which should be started to get done on time.
One should get to know how much time it takes for each specific task to get done from experiences. So, unless the time is physically short for regular human's life(obviously not for the life of SOD students), just by subtract the time for bed, meals, other necessaries from 24h... and assign the tasks to your daily schedule.
The above was actually what I was told in a certain seminar. This sounds very rational, but be careful not to become a person like me...
Although this is a good way to look at things, it shouldn't be the only way to look at them. I used to look at things like this and it didn't really do me too much good. You also should look at what things are needed in order to complete them and how long will it take. Set up and "strike" time take a pretty good amount of time and you have to be sure not to pass the point of diminishing return in relation to how much work you actually get done for the amount of time spent.
I used to use a system similar to the one he recommends in the end, with things that pretty much were "must be done today", "should be done today if I can", "needs to be done soon", "I'd like to do this", and "maybe, time permitting I will get around to this". I used it for years, but stopped last semester because of some technical glitches with the Oracle calendar and its synchronization flattened everything to the same priority several times. I miss the older system, and seeing this article reminds me of just what it is I'm missing about it. I guess it's something else to add to the to-do list.
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