[HN Gopher] The harmful assumptions we make about tasks
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       The harmful assumptions we make about tasks
        
       Author : croshan
       Score  : 44 points
       Date   : 2021-01-20 18:30 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.cyrusroshan.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.cyrusroshan.com)
        
       | BirdieNZ wrote:
       | I've been using Linear (https://linear.app) a little recently (no
       | affiliation), and it has settings to automatically close and/or
       | archive issues that haven't been completed in the configured time
       | period. It seems it would help with the neverending backlog.
        
       | denhaus wrote:
       | Not sure this applies but I'll just plug my super early stage CLI
       | task manager (github.com/ardunn/dex). It's FOSS, kind of like
       | taskwarrior but it tells you how to prioritize your tasks. It
       | fills in the "personal management" space for me quite well, but
       | doesn't integrate with any online services like Amna does.
        
       | dinkleberg wrote:
       | Maybe I'm prematurely becoming a pedantic old man, but "harmful"?
       | Come on!
       | 
       | Smoking is harmful. Having permanent tasks may be fatiguing, but
       | if that constitutes being harmful it would seem life has become
       | too good (which is surprising given the current harmful
       | pandemic!)
        
         | antonvs wrote:
         | "Harmful" is virtually a term of art in software development,
         | ever since Dijkstra's 1968 article, "Goto Statement Considered
         | Harmful."
        
         | LandR wrote:
         | Harmful now just means a millenial feels ever so slightly
         | uncomfortable.
        
       | TameAntelope wrote:
       | I use Post-it notes for the "personal day-level" tasks, littered
       | around my desk. The idea being that the task is now literally
       | cluttering up my desk, which triggers a cleanliness anxiety to
       | help motivate the completion of the task.
       | 
       | If I fucked up and the task is important or I do want to track it
       | over a longer period, I'll either copy it into Notion, or stick
       | it into my notebook directly, where it lives forever.
        
         | croshan wrote:
         | That's a great approach! It reminds me of a similar approach I
         | did when I still commuted to work: putting the sticky notes
         | directly on the laptop.
         | 
         | At the end of the day, I'd put the laptop in my backpack, and
         | the sticky notes would get crumpled, so I would have to write
         | new ones for the following day. It didn't work as well, though,
         | because I'd occasionally lose sticky notes, and forget what I
         | did yesterday.
        
       | telotortium wrote:
       | This is an interesting idea. I use Org-mode, so I'm thinking
       | about doing this: I have a set of searches I run every week or so
       | to find tasks or projects to archive (which places them in a
       | separate file that I can still search, but is not in my face in
       | my main TODO files):
       | https://github.com/telotortium/doom.d/blob/ceb88ea05a2c8a5d5....
       | 
       | Right now I just archive tasks and projects that have been
       | completed or cancelled, but I'm thinking about archiving all
       | tasks and projects I haven't worked on for at least a quarter.
       | That way I can essentially forget about them but still be able to
       | locate them if I really need them.
        
       | ArcMex wrote:
       | At work, I use Planner x To-Do in Teams to keep organized. I have
       | buckets labeled Today, This Week, This Month and This Quarter.
       | Everyday, I slide tasks as required. I can appreciate the point
       | on permanent tasks and fatigue but they have a place in my
       | workflow. I would rather slide something over to This Week or
       | This Month if I don't need to do it Today as opposed to checking
       | it and recreating it.
        
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       (page generated 2021-01-20 23:01 UTC)