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More on using time estimates

patch says:
The following may seem a little complicated but it combines time estimates and priorities and "Tips & Tricks Tuesday - Using Time Estimates" implied to me that it might be useful posting it here. It requires time estimates for everything.

For this, I have 8 smart lists. They are called [0], [1], [2], ..., [7], so they'll appear all side by side and distinguished by the "[ ]", even if you have more smart lists.

[0] is dueBefore:"1 days from today"
[1] is due:"1 days from today"
[2] is due:"2 days from today"
etc.

So once a week, during a weekly review or whatever you like to call it, I postpone every overdue task to that day. So, for example, if my review day is on sunday, I make every overdue task due today on sunday.

Then I check if there's anything I am willing to do during the rest of sunday. If it's not, I'll postpone everything to monday. Then I'll click on smartlist [1]. In that list I'll check the time estimate - and my daily play / calendar for that day to see how much time I have to do things. If the time estimate roughly fills up the time I have left on monday, fine. If not, I'll start postponing tasks until it does. Of course you can either postpone tasks with a low priority or you postpone tasks in a way to block similar tasks like writing emails on tuesday, reading articles on wednesday etc. As soon as the [1] (monday) time estimate is consistent with the time you have on monday, go to [2] (tuesday) and do just the same there. That way, you can plan your week in a simple way.

Now when you start working on monday morning, go [0] (as of course then [0] has become the monday list) and do what you have to. If at the end of the day you realize you did not accomplish everything, postpone it so it'll appear in [0] tomorrow. On tuesday morning, [0] has become the tuesday list. Of course now the time estimate does not exactly fit your calendar spare time - so every morning (or every evening) you'll probably need a little time for selecting and postponing the tasks you can't accomplish that day anyway. At the end of your week, in my case on sunday, you can see what is left over, add new tasks that had no due date yet from your project lists etc. and allocate tasks to next week's days.
Posted at 8:45am on April 7, 2009
(closed account) says:
wow. Looks like a great idea to me.
Posted 14 years ago
laskersaw says:
Been looking for something like this for a while now .. good idea .. thumbs up
Posted 14 years ago
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