ForumsQuestionsTime to Complete Tasks


Time to Complete Tasks
Author Message
bgreenwood2000

Posted: Nov 24, 2011
Score: 0 Reference
Been using Toodledo a couple of months now, and am interested in analysing the way tasks ebb and flow. One thing I'd like to be able to work out is how long it typically takes between adding a task and completing it. I have a list of shame - a search which returns tasks that have been sat there uncompleted for over six weeks. And I know there are quiteba few tasks that get done within a few days.... But what's the average, or median time?

Can't see any way of doing this within Toodledo... Thought I could export the data and do it in Excel, but appears that Date Added is not included in the export facility. Any suggestions?

Barbara
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Nov 25, 2011
Score: 0 Reference
Hmm.... I dont think that this type of report is possible right now, but I'll add it to our to-do list. Thanks for the idea.
Purveyor

Posted: Nov 25, 2011
Score: 0 Reference
Barbara, it is an interesting idea but I have one suggestion: Get rid of your "list of shame", and I don't mean by completing all your tasks. Recognize that some tasks are just not that urgent and that's probably why you haven't completed them. But, some tasks are urgent and you can identify them as such by using the Priority field. The other tasks are just things you'd like to get done at some point in the future and you don't need to see them now. The fact that you haven't completed them is fine. You aren't expecting to complete them now.

I'm all for analyzing, but completing the important tasks is more ... important. ;)


This message was edited Nov 25, 2011.
Salgud

Posted: Nov 28, 2011
Score: 0 Reference
I have a "a list of shame" too. And until I read this thread, I forgot somehow back along the way a technique I used, pretty successfully, for years, to minimize this list. Whenever I have a day where I have no immediately pressing priorities, I'd do at least one, maybe two off the list of shame. It worked pretty well.

With personal tasks, I minimized my list of shame by doing some of them whenever I had a 3 day weekend. Regular two day weekends aren't long enough!

I'm going back to this old system what worked so well.
bgreenwood2000

Posted: Nov 28, 2011
Score: 0 Reference
Hmm... I'm already using negative priority to indicate tasks which I'd like to get round to some time, so these older tasks really are things I have decided I need to do. I broadly follow the GTD method, so I only put a Due Date on tasks which have a hard deadline in real life.

I have been using Salgud's strategy... when all the things with a due date of today or tomorrow are done and I still have some time, I will do one of two things. Either complete a couple of quick and easy tasks ( not much effort, plenty of satisfaction), or tackle one of the tasks that's been waiting a long time to get done.

My work involves a fair amount of time spent in meetings and events , and the rest of my time in my office preparing, planning and communicating. In a typical week, I will have somewhere between 10 and 20 hours available for the office-based stuff. And each week, an absolute minimum of 5 hours of new office work comes my way, more often 10 to 20. On average, I need to do as many hours work each week as come in, but I'd like to make sure I'm not only doing the new stuff and leaving older tasks to rot.

I have to say that since I started using TD to support my efforts at GTD (in September), I have never missed a real-life deadline, and have also ticked off a few things that had been on my Sometime List for over a year.....

Barbara
You cannot reply yet

U Back to topic home

R Post a reply

To participate in these forums, you must be signed in.