Have a set of little programming/maths exercises, like Project Euler or some programming challenges. -things like “return the number of prime numbers in a list”, “find the longest increasing subsequence in a list”, etc.
First you give an estimate for how long it will take to write a solution, then you write your solution (in the app itself), then you give an estimate of how likely it is that your solution is correct, and then your solution is executed and you see whether it works or not.
This could help mitigate the planning fallacy and overconfidence and allows pretty quick iterations, but only works for programmers.
This is a good idea, but might be generalized and simplified. Simply put down a task and the time you think it will take you to complete it. This is then published publicly or semi-publicly—the key thing is that someone (probably another user) can now verify when you’ve completed a task.
Simpler, applicable to any kind of task, and calibrated by a third-party.
True, but that requires dedication; the trivial inconveniences of the system for publishing the task etc. means you’ll often just skip it. Though it is the kind of thing that could be integrated in a todo list or something; for example a todo list software that detects when an item has been on the list for say two days, and asks you for a confidence interval for when you expect to do it.
An additional benefit of a dedicated app/game is that you can integrate things like leaderboards, you can compare yourself to others, etc. - competition can be quite the motivator.
I hadn’t thought about leaderboards—definitely an advantage for any uniform-task game. I’m still averse to doing programming with anything that’s not vim and cli tools, though.
Have you ever done Google Code Jam? Something like that backend would be good for solution submission and checking, while still allowing you to program with whatever the hell you want to.
Calibrated Project Euler
(for programmers only)
Have a set of little programming/maths exercises, like Project Euler or some programming challenges. -things like “return the number of prime numbers in a list”, “find the longest increasing subsequence in a list”, etc.
First you give an estimate for how long it will take to write a solution, then you write your solution (in the app itself), then you give an estimate of how likely it is that your solution is correct, and then your solution is executed and you see whether it works or not.
This could help mitigate the planning fallacy and overconfidence and allows pretty quick iterations, but only works for programmers.
This is a good idea, but might be generalized and simplified. Simply put down a task and the time you think it will take you to complete it. This is then published publicly or semi-publicly—the key thing is that someone (probably another user) can now verify when you’ve completed a task.
Simpler, applicable to any kind of task, and calibrated by a third-party.
True, but that requires dedication; the trivial inconveniences of the system for publishing the task etc. means you’ll often just skip it. Though it is the kind of thing that could be integrated in a todo list or something; for example a todo list software that detects when an item has been on the list for say two days, and asks you for a confidence interval for when you expect to do it.
An additional benefit of a dedicated app/game is that you can integrate things like leaderboards, you can compare yourself to others, etc. - competition can be quite the motivator.
I hadn’t thought about leaderboards—definitely an advantage for any uniform-task game. I’m still averse to doing programming with anything that’s not vim and cli tools, though.
Have you ever done Google Code Jam? Something like that backend would be good for solution submission and checking, while still allowing you to program with whatever the hell you want to.