[HN Gopher] Imaginary Personal Manager
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Imaginary Personal Manager
Author : uchenic
Score : 61 points
Date : 2021-10-04 13:14 UTC (9 hours ago)
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| zorr wrote:
| This is the approach I'm also looking at. GTD systems are good at
| storing and keeping track of times and due dates. But the
| planning/execution step is missing besides basic "work on the
| highest priority task for each project.
|
| The next step could be a scheduler that takes the GTD state as
| input along with your calendar and builds an execution plan.
| catillac wrote:
| This seems useful, but they use terms like GTD and never define
| them, and with the grammar, it's slightly hard to follow.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| In this case it could perhaps be excused, given that GTD in
| productivity/PM/business space is as recognizable an acronym as
| API is in software development.
| wishinghand wrote:
| It always baffles me how bloggers don't write it out first and
| then give a parenthetical acronym/abbreviation: Getting Things
| Done (GTD).
| Semaphor wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
|
| I guess they assumed that anyone interested in todo-apps would
| have already encountered GTD before.
|
| I never managed to get GTD done, but the book was still an
| interesting and enjoyable read when I read it back in
| university.
| yitchelle wrote:
| I have a personal kanban board. My pain is deciding how many
| tasks I can work on for a given day.
|
| Somedays I have 5 tasks and I finish them with a few hours left
| over. Other days, I only managed finished 2 tasks and have to
| push the left over tasks back into the pool.
|
| Anyone know if there some heuristics I can apply so that I
| continuously adjust my task loading on a day to day basis?
| sokoloff wrote:
| What's the problem on the days where you finish 5 tasks and
| have hours and energy leftover with using that information to
| "pull more work"?
|
| Kanban is designed to minimize WIP. When your WIP is down to
| zero, it's perfectly reasonable to pull more work.
| choeger wrote:
| I don't think there's a valuable heuristic. I would propose to
| go low (2 tasks in your case) and if you feel extremely
| motivated do some tasks from the next day (and consequently
| finish your week early if possible). Leftover time can be
| filled with hobbies and household to make you a better human
| being.
| cratermoon wrote:
| What sort of tasks are we talking about? If they are
| cognitively demanding tasks that require uninterrupted focus,
| plan on getting no more than four hours worth done on an
| average day. Some people may find it takes practice to get to
| four hours, some may find that four hours is easy and six is
| possible.
|
| A single distraction can easily eat up 30 minutes from your
| allotted time, even if the distraction itself only takes a few
| minutes.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Have you tried velocity/capacity planning? It's not too
| accurate on small scales, but should be pretty accurate for a
| single person on the scale of a week or two.
| gamerDude wrote:
| If you wanted to start using the pomodoro technique, they have
| some time based heuristics. Basically each pomodoro is 25
| minutes of focused work.
|
| After you start the habit, you estimate and track tasks in
| number of pomodoro. And your goal is to do a certain number of
| pomodoros in a day and then adjusting your tasks on if you
| estimate it will take more or less pomodoros.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I use a simple text file. It has a list of tasks with a minus or
| a pluses beside it. If I don't do a task, it gets moved to the
| next day and a plus added to it. Eventually the pluses get
| annoying and I just leave the task as never to to do.
|
| It's worked out well, if no one ever asks me about the never done
| task, then I succeeded in not wasting my time. Sometimes people
| do pop in to ask about it, at which point I simply add a new
| task, referencing the old one. I don't even worry about due
| dates, I just pick things off the todo list, mostly at random.
| Important things tend to get done early or on time.
| Dyac wrote:
| Good article. I do this using 2 tools on top of Gsuite.
|
| https://reclaim.ai/ - I found this on HN a couple of months back.
| It schedules tasks you add to your Google Tasks on your Google
| calendar, fully automatically.
|
| https://tasksboard.com/ allows you to have multiple Google tasks
| lists displayed as a kanban board.
|
| Drag your task into your reclaim.ai "todo" list and time gets
| blocked out in your calendar automatically. et viola!
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Unfortunately I like the name too much to find it acceptable as a
| mundane app.
| 13415 wrote:
| I'm a bit skeptical about Kanban boards because you cannot have
| them with you all the time. That goes against the main idea of
| GTD to reduce cognitive load as much as possible.
|
| I used to use the " _Action Day Planner_ " together with a
| notebook for more detailed project-related data, and this system
| was very capable of organizing my work. I don't think electronic
| devices and software are very helpful. You either don't have them
| at hand all the time anywhere, or you end up fiddling with
| software on mobile phones that distracts and makes you enter text
| much less efficiently than writing on paper.
|
| Anyway, I found with time that the GTD method is mostly suitable
| for non-creative, boring management tasks. It's good for
| delegating and managing under load. Or, as a friend of mine once
| said: It's more of a " _you (pointing at employee) better get
| things done!_ " method. I now only use a calendar and "
| _Leuchtturm 1917_ " notebooks. Any other notebook will do, too,
| as long as they have a ToC and numbered pages.
| wpietri wrote:
| Why can't you have a Kanban board with you?
|
| I use KanbanFlow with both work and personal boards and it's
| great. The mobile interface fine. For home/desk situations,
| I'll use a spare monitor or a cheap tablet so it's more
| present.
|
| Nothing wrong with preferring a notebook, of course; it is
| easier for some things, and I use to carry one religiously. But
| since it's an extra physical object I have to haul around
| everywhere and that requires a special tool to even use, I
| don't miss it.
| thedmstdmstdmst wrote:
| Thanks for the post, I've been doing most of what you suggested
| except for the auto adding of tasks to my schedule, that is a
| great idea. Thanks.
| uchenic wrote:
| I have implemented automation for myself, but have a feeling
| that it might be interesting for others.
| kritiko wrote:
| Oliver Burkeman's 4000 Weeks addresses a lot of this, and he
| similarly ends up recommending personal kanban.
| ruleryak wrote:
| I'm a little over 2000 weeks old. Does that mean what I think
| that means?
| yardshop wrote:
| Over the last several months I have been learning and using
| ClickUp [1] and it provides several tools that can be used to
| achieve what the article describes.
|
| First they provide a very flexible hierarchy. You can create
| multiple workspaces with multiple folders and lists of tasks
| within them, or start with just one space with one list of tasks.
|
| Next you can view a list vertically as a list, or horizontally as
| a kanban-style board, or as a mind map, or a number of other
| options.
|
| Third, you can put tasks on a calendar to timebox and arrange the
| flow of your work.
|
| You can define a set of statuses to apply to the tasks in a
| lists, and can copy these status arrangements between lists.
| These define the flow of your work and the columns of your board.
|
| Tasks can have subtasks, and can also contain check lists and
| comments. Check lists can be converted into substasks.
| Combinations of folders lists tasks and subtasks can be made into
| templates to speed the setup of a new project.
|
| There are a number of other features which help to capture info
| and keep it in one place: Notepad is a quick place to jot
| something down that can be converted to a task later; Docs is a
| somewhat wiki-like place to write longer notes; then you can link
| things to provide the necessary relationships and associations.
| There are also numerous integrations with other apps to import or
| export data.
|
| The phone app is pretty good too, including the calendar and
| kanban views.
|
| Not a paid endorsement, just very enthusiastic about the
| capabilities of this system and how it can be adapted to suit
| many different working styles. Thought other productivity-heads
| might enjoy it! =)
|
| 1: https://www.clickup.com
| twojacobtwo wrote:
| It's great to see someone on HN endorse Clickup based on
| personal experience. I selected Clickup over a number of other
| options for my workplace's project management system only a few
| months ago, in large part due to the flexibility and
| customization you alluded to (and cost vs. features), and I
| have been hoping that it was a good choice for others and not
| just according to my own biases. If you haven't had a chance,
| take a look at their automations - they might give you some
| ideas for automating your personal workflows a bit.
|
| Bonus tip: If you use one of their docs as a meeting
| agenda/minutes, you can select a portion of text and make it
| into a task with a right click. I just discovered this, but it
| seems to be a great way to create follow-ups and assign people
| to action items.
| kirubakaran wrote:
| I use my https://crushentropy.com/ as the day planner and it has
| definitely made me more productive. It's like markdown for
| planning your day.
| tra3 wrote:
| That's really cool. I just added my appointments and tasks for
| the day. Visualizing everything I'm definitely not going to be
| as productive as I was hopping to be =/
| cygned wrote:
| I use https://teuxdeux.com for weekly planning.
|
| Basically for any planning. That's the only todo list that works
| for me.
| jedahan wrote:
| I made a really dumb block-based, client-side-only tool for
| trying to play around with weekly scheduling.
|
| https://jedahan.com/saltpeanuts/
|
| The data gets serialized (but still human readable) in the url
| fragment, so its shareable, but server never sees it. You can
| also just download and run, or see the code for "jedahan's first
| and only Vue app" on
| https://github.com/jedahan/saltpeanuts#readme , which is the only
| user guide.
|
| It has not helped my wrangle my time or focus at all.
| corndoge wrote:
| If you haven't tried Notion, you should. Especially the portion
| of this describing mapping tasks onto a calendar is implemented
| perfectly in notion databases.
|
| For example, processing steps like this:
|
| > The calendar is filled two times a week.
|
| Unnecessary in Notion as you can view a kanban with dated items
| as a calendar.
|
| https://www.notion.so/Intro-to-databases-fd8cd2d212f74c50954...
|
| Edit: why am I being downvoted for suggesting a tool I like
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I started putting 1 hour or half-hour blocks on my calendar for
| every task. Game changer.
|
| I can have all the lists in the world without knowing what to
| do, when to do it, or how soon I'll be able to get to it. This
| works for all that.
| corndoge wrote:
| Yeah, it's fantastic in Notion to be able to add a date
| property to a task and have all your tasks magically show in
| a calendar without needing to manually create calendar
| events.
| sodality2 wrote:
| Anyone know an OSS alternative for this sort of time-
| scheduling? I use Trilium for all my notes currently but
| it's not great for time scheduling like Notion seems to
| be... Wish I could make a PR and add that feature but my
| Node skills are nonexistent.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Perhaps another tool is required to add items to a list,
| which then adds to my calendar. That does seem like a nice
| automation, and a "list view" / "kanban view" would be a
| plus.
|
| But, I'm happy just blocking time in the same program work
| comes in on (email). I am far enough out of the iterative
| loop of development that most assignments are "soft" as in
| emails or requests from the group or random people in the
| organization who are in early stage product development and
| haven't formed a core team yet with all the project
| management tooling that comes with that.
| pantulis wrote:
| That sounds a lot like "time blocking" or "hyperscheduling".
| I agree that this is a game changer --at least for me,
| specially being conscious that, well, you only have 24 hours
| in a day.
| Swizec wrote:
| I've started doing this and it's a game changer. Mostly in
| the form of _" Wow I never realized how few things fit in 24
| hours"_
|
| Strangely it feels like I get less done now. But I'm also
| less stressed.
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