>If there is immediate impact, assign a low negative score. And if only in the long term, assign a higher negative score.
So what's a "higher negative score"? :) Is it a score that's nearer to 0 or further away from it?
How to prioritize tasks?
51–60 of 61 posts
Re: How to prioritize tasks?
#52Worth remembering that priority and sequence are not quite the same thing.
There's a useful framework called RICE where you evaluate/score ideas by Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort. Sometimes assigning numeric values feels forced so I often use it as "dimensions to be thinking about" rather than a literal scoring system. [1]
There's some great stuff in Reinertsen's Flow book about different sequencing strategies and when to use each. Eg, When delay costs are homogeneous, do the shortest task first. When task durations are homogeneous, do the highest cost-of-delay task first.
[1] https://www.intercom.com/blog/rice-simple-prioritization-for...
Re: How to prioritize tasks?
#53There is also this: https://www.productplan.com/glossary/weighted-shortest-job-f... Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)
Re: How to prioritize tasks?
#54Thuis reminders me of the opposite approach Mark Forster takes boy prioritising in the resistance a task creates
http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2022/6/14/resistance...
Re: How to prioritize tasks?
#55How to Prioritize Anything: 1) Make two lists. Write everything down in the first list. The second list is empty. 2) Something came up! One item on this list cannot be done. It doesn't matter why: you know which one that is. Which one is it? Write that down in the second list and mark it off the first list. 3) Repeat until the first list is done. Congratulations, your second list is prioritized (albeit likely in reve…
I like this idea, but isn’t this a recipe for only ever doing the urgent stuff, not the not-urgent-but-important stuff? For example, if your list had “read 1 chapter of SICP” on it, you might never get to it.
Re: How to prioritize tasks?
#56For me, Ease & Impact scoring has proven to be the best mix of simplicity and effectiveness
Re: How to prioritize tasks?
#57How to Prioritize Anything: 1) Make two lists. Write everything down in the first list. The second list is empty. 2) Something came up! One item on this list cannot be done. It doesn't matter why: you know which one that is. Which one is it? Write that down in the second list and mark it off the first list. 3) Repeat until the first list is done. Congratulations, your second list is prioritized (albeit likely in reve…
I like this idea, but isn’t this a recipe for only ever doing the urgent stuff, not the not-urgent-but-important stuff? For example, if your list had “read 1 chapter of SICP” on it, you might never get to it.
It’s not prioritization if it doesn’t hurt.
Re: How to prioritize tasks?
#58Re: How to prioritize tasks?
#59For me, I think of projects as sort of having two phases: the discovery phase and the "get it over the finish line" phase. In the first phase, there are a ton of unknowns. You don't know what all the technical challenges are, so it's difficult to even estimate how long the project will take. As such, I think it's more important to take on tasks that have the most number of unknowns. Your goal here is to unearth any "…
You can read more about this way of thinking in 37signals' book Shape Up: https://basecamp.com/shapeup/3.4-chapter-13#work-is-like-a-h...
Thanks for the link! It's good to know my personal observations about projects is shared by others. I'll have to read that book.
Re: How to prioritize tasks?
#60How to Prioritize Anything: 1) Make two lists. Write everything down in the first list. The second list is empty. 2) Something came up! One item on this list cannot be done. It doesn't matter why: you know which one that is. Which one is it? Write that down in the second list and mark it off the first list. 3) Repeat until the first list is done. Congratulations, your second list is prioritized (albeit likely in reve…
I like this idea, but isn’t this a recipe for only ever doing the urgent stuff, not the not-urgent-but-important stuff? For example, if your list had “read 1 chapter of SICP” on it, you might never get to it.
That sounds more like you need free time where you are not "working on tasks".