Task and Project System

I have developed a system of organizing tasks and projects for myself that serve the following purposes:

1. To allow me to better track my progress.
2. To allow me to determine what time management paradigms and strategies work the best.
3. To provide quantitative data on my productivity to find patterns.
4. To show any correlation between my prodctivity and other factors of my life, such as my sleep schedule.

This is done in two major parts: a daily to-do list and a greater project list.

The daily to-do list follows a simple process:

1. Prior to the start of the day, draft a to-do list with the following:
1. Header containing the date of the day in question.
2. Names of the tasks.
1. If the task is related to a project on the project list, precede the task name with the project short name (such as "EE: Task Name" for Euclid's Elements).
3. An appropriate number of boxes to the left of the task.
4. Shorthands for each of the categories of eleven to which the task belongs to the right of the task.
2. Complete the tasks throughout the day.
1. If a new task arises during the day, append that task to the to-do list with the category shorthand that denotes it has been added during the day.
3. At the end of the day, record the final state of the to-do list in a table as follows:
1. For each category, write the number of tasks completed in that category as a fraction of the total tasks completed in that category (such as 8/14 for eight tasks completed of fourteen total tasks in a particular category) under the column of the category in question and to the right of the date of the day just completed.
2. If a category was unused, place instead an indicator to differentiate this fact from apparently missing information (such as a dash instead of a blank space).

The project management follows a simple process:

1. Identify a project and place it in a table of all projects.
2. Determine basic details of the project:
1. Short name of the project (for to-do lists).
2. Estimated time to complete.
3. Dedication as hours per day.
4. Category.
3. Determine a slot of time to insert the project:
1. Determine start date based on the status of other ongoing projects
2. Estimate completion date from estimated completion time added to start date
4. Divide the project into daily segments to place on daily to-do lists.
5. Work on the project according to what is placed on the to-do lists.
6. Once the whole project is finished, record the completion date.

I have only recently begun this regimen and I have already seen some results of it. Because I want to complete as many tasks as possible and I write most of my tasks before the start of the day, I must predict how productive I will be. This process increases my self-awareness. I want to assign myself as many tasks as possible, but I also want to complete as many of the tasks I assign myself as possible. I can assign myself very few tasks in order to complete them all easily, but I will be sacrificing the total number. I can also assign myself a very high number of tasks in order to maximize the total number of tasks I complete, but I will be sacrificing the ratio of tasks completed to total tasks assigned. Thus, as time passes, I perform this self-estimation exercise daily, and approach an equilibrium in the number of tasks I assign myself.

The complexity is not limited to just the number of tasks, however. I must also consider the categories, particularly the two most important categories: project-related tasks and carry-over tasks. Project-related, represented by "P" on my to-do lists, denote that the task is related to a project on my to-do list. Carry-over, represented by "C" on my to-do lists, denote that the task has been on my to-do list before, and is indeed only my to-do list now because I failed to complete it before, which is to differentiate it from recurring tasks which may reappear regardless if I have completed it previously. Tasks I do not complete in a given day become carry-over tasks, unless they are recurrent tasks, or I have substantially changed the nature of the task in light of new information, or I have decided to scrap the task altogether.

Carry-over tasks are a bit like debt. If I do not "pay it off," it will continue to accumulate and become more cumbersome, as I rack up more carry-over tasks to complete. When I accrue carry-over tasks, I am discouraged from taking on new tasks, else I risk adding significantly to my carry-over task "debt." Therefore, when I have a sufficient number of carry-over tasks, my productivity in other areas is slowed or halted. This is further incentive to strive to achieve 100% completion of all tasks in a given day.

The project system is also quite useful. It allows me to see that at a given point in the future I will have completed certain projects, which inspires and motivates me to continue working on them. It is also useful in sharing the state of my projects with others. A made-for-blog version of my project table is publicly available on the "Project" page.