Hot answers tagged tasks
19
As a matter of fact we all at some moment of time struggled with code. some one will share it and some one will not. You will find a lot of fakers in our field. at least i have found a lot. so don't worry at all.
1) As far as your problem is concerned i truly understand what you are facing because i was in your shoes not so long ago. the solution to your ...
13
The best answer is probably at http://zenhabits.net/zen-to-done-ztd-the-ultimate-simple-productivity-system/ -- Leo Babauta literally wrote the book on Zen To Done, and this post is his introduction to the system, comparing it with GTD.
11
I've found two concepts, projects and next actions, which are a key part of the GTD system, to be particularly helpful for this kind of problem. In brief, the idea is to maintain a list of projects, which are usually high-level goals, that will take significant time and effort to achieve. For example, "write paper about structural advantages of geodesic ...
11
In my opinion, the reason that breaking down tasks works is because it makes your vision for what you want done more concrete. Breaking down tasks more achieves this better, but it also takes up more of your time before you actually get started working.
Probably the best thing to do is to break down your tasks a fair amount at first. (There's a limit to ...
11
I've been using RTM (both web and iPhone) as my GTD system for over a year and have found it incredibly helpful and ideally suited to my needs. I originally started with this advice from the RTM blog, but quickly streamlined the system to something less complex to manage and with less overhead.
What I've liked the most are the power of the smart lists and ...
10
I use Checkvist with Mark Forster's AutoFocus 4 method. It has minimal graphics to show your progress, but I love it for the keyboard shortcuts.
10
That's a book by Steven Covey. The important take-away I learned it worry about "quadrant 2", i.e., important but not urgent. It is easy to be caught in the urgent important and urgent not-important and never get to quadrant 2.
9
This is a question looking for subjective answers but a common one, so I'll give it a go.
I know exactly how the above feels and I think it's a motivation issue. To address it I find that I need to things to get going again:
A relatively simple task/job that has a clear requirement(s)/goal(s). It's something that I can complete in a day or less. Even ...
9
Scheduling tasks that do not really have a particular target time would just create an overhead in your system, where you'd have to keep rescheduling them whenever you didn't get them finished that day or even have rather worked on other things.
Since they're all non-urgent, though they sure may be important and even critical for your personal goals, I ...
9
The problem you're struggling with is one of the core issues addressed by David Allen's Getting Things Done.
Consider the to do list items go to bank and work on thesis. Assuming your banking task is fairly straightforward, this is a simple action. The second is a several-year endeavor. When most people look at a list like this their mind is drawn to the ...
9
This is where maintaining a list of current projects comes in handy. Keep a version of it in priority order, with (if applicable) deadlines noted on it. When your superior asks you to add another task, provide them a copy of the list and ask them where on the list the new task falls.
In some cases, just showing them the list solves the problem, because ...
8
I would follow this tip from Hemingway:
The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you
know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never
be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about
it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way
your subconscious will work on ...
8
My experience is that it helps to:
A) Have a routine.
B) Write it down.
C) Finish something every time you start.
Routine
With a good routine, a great many decisions you would think about are already made. Unless you work in a factory, your first day in a job or role will be far from routine. Here are some suggested attributes for the routine you ...
8
The first thing to do is check to see if you're being asked for an estimate or a commitment. Especially in software development, these words are often misused.
An estimate should be a range with an indication of your confidence in the values. For example, you might estimate a project as 25% confidence of accomplishment in 5 days, 50% in 8 days, 90% in 12 ...
7
In your example: if you won't read the book in one sitting, and can meaningfully split it up into chunks, then doing so is probably a good idea.
Generally: It's more motivating to have something that you can start an know will be able to finish within a reasonable timeframe and then tick off your list than to have a task that comes back to the top of your ...
7
Ask yourself; My tasks realy has to these unimportant details?
If you say yes, then they are not unimportant. They are a part of your task. Keep doing them. Some of your tasks could include a lot of details. So, how can you define "finished task" with not doing some details? Also don't bored with doing them. Learn how to get fun with doing them.
If you say ...
6
Usually I register reading the book as Next Action. But I do this in a different ways. My next action says Read The Temporal Void for 30 minutes. That is I specify the amount of time to read the book. Since usually books cannot be completed in one sitting, and chapter lengths are not equal, I fix the amount of time. It works for me.
I do not recall that ...
6
This site is devoted to practical, tangible steps and systems that can increase personal productivity, but perhaps the most important insight is that all systems have their limits and that it's important to be able to realize if and when you've reached a point where your commitments exceed your ability to meet them.
Only then can you make the transition ...
6
Before specific smart and dumb phone advice, a quick word about next actions versus tasks with due times. You are struggling with a canonical GTD problem: the difference between next actions and calendar tasks.
Things that you can do as soon as you're in the right place (e.g. at home, by a computer) are called next actions. They should go on a context list ...
6
It sounds like you are finding other things to do and working on them with your task. One way to deal with this is write down the things you think of but stay focused on the core of your desk. That way you don't lose your focus/train of thought but also don't forget about the other items. Then when you need a break/complete the main task, you can ...
6
Some of the alternative that you should try
Wunderlist:Wunderlist is a free, open source, simple and beautiful cross-platform task management tool that lets you sync your to-do list between different computers and devices
Remember The Task:Remember The Task is a light-weight ToDo application that allows you to maintain a list of tasks to be done. It Syncs ...
6
I think you're on the same path with Piotr Wozniak! Please read his story here:
Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm
He is the inventor of the SM2 algorithm used in SuperMemo and it gave insight to many other similar applications such as Anki and Mnemosyne. That algorithm might give you some insight. Spaced repetition ...
6
Stephen Covey has a nice model for this, called the four quadrants. The quadrants are:
Urgent and important tasks
Not urgent, but important
Urgent and not important
Nor urgent and not important
His books cover how to focus more time in quadrant 2. The more you focus on Q2, the less tasks end up in Q1.
As a first step, devide your tasks according to ...
6
So there are two things there... one is universal capture (that is, getting things from your brain to your next-actions list without losing anything on the way) and the other is context (looking at the right bit of your next actions list when in a particular context)
Looking at the first one first - there are lots of universal capture methods (I've always ...
6
Have a look at http://www.todotxt.com/
This set of tools starts from a simple txt file, the most versatile, industry-standard, non-proprietary file format that will never suffer from versioning problems or can become corrupted by program errors, and that can be stored and opened on any system imaginable.
TodoTXT is a free and open-source set of tools for ...
6
try to pair with someone; it always makes things much easier; it's a lot of fun to work in a good team
when you're done, make sure your code is as good as you can make it to be (if the product works but the code is a mess, it's not what your employer needs) - imagine if you hire a plumber who will be cutting corners, doing a poor job etc - would you like to ...
5
I use the very excellent Org-Mode for GNU Emacs. There is a lot of “startup” effort for it, especially if you are not already an Emacs user. As I was already an Emacs user coming to Org-Mode, it was much less for me.
At it's core Org-Mode is just a simple, plaintext-based, outliner. You can have as Projects as outline heads, tasks as outline sub-items, etc. ...
5
After looking more, I see RTM has an excellent blog post on exactly this. It suggests the following steps:
Create Lists for Personal and Work Daily Tasks
Create a List for Each Project
Brainstorm Project Tasks and Tag your Next Actions with “na”
Use Tags and Locations to Create Contexts (@Home, @Work, @Web, etc.)
Create Smart Lists to Separate Tasks Into ...
5
Agree that there seems to be a kind of repulsive forcefield arounds assignments. I've often spent way more time avoiding doing a task than actually doing it would have taken.
As to breaking through this barrier: I've recently started using a GTD system, and I find that this helps a bit.
First I put the task into the system, so that I'm a lot less ...
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