Organizing To-do's by priority value

Features
#1

Good morning,

I’d love a way to prioritize what to work on. There’s a system I really like that allows users to input, for any given task: value divided by expected time to complete.
The value is a number based on whatever range each user likes to use (I like 0-100, but it could be 0-10000). Time is based on 1 = 1 hr, such that 0.5 is 30 mins.

For example:

  • Pay pending late electric bill: (value 100 / time 0.1) = priority value of 1000
  • Buy additional bubblegum flavors across the street: (value 10 / time 0.2) = priority value of 50

This way I know that it’s logically more valuable to ME that I pay the electric bill first.
It really helps making decisions on what to work on at the moment.
It takes only a bit of practice for users to get reasonably good at assigning these values, but if you like the idea feel free to implement anything that may seem more user friendly.

If implemented, each menu (Inbox, Next, Focus, Projects) could be sorted by priority value.

What do you think?

1 Like
#2

Personally, I like this concept and I use this approach to prioritize work in some cases. But I don’t think it’s a good fit for Everdo.

The GTD method has its own approach to prioritization - through a combination of Next, active projects, contexts, due dates, available time and energy. If these tools are used right, then the added value of the value/time metric seems small, at the cost of additional data entry per task.

#3

Hi Andrei,
are you suggesting to create priority labels? Or are you using the energy filter? I find it quiet interesting how to carefully evaluate the work/time/energy of feature requests in terms of programming and entry time for tasks. That makes some issues look quite differently. However, in my case I don’t use time and energy tags but miss priority. But it looks that energy is the priority in Everdo, just under a different label (name).
is that correct?

#4

@everdouser intresting concept. I like it. Do you know a program that work like that? I want to try it. Otherwise I try to implement it in my org Agenda.

#5

I learned the concept from SuperMemo’s Plan function. It’s a program designed to learn and remember information, and the UX is not modern. You’re better off implementing it to your liking anywhere.