I know it will take me 10 minutes to get gas, 30 minutes to go to the grocery store and some as-of-yet unknown amount of time to deploy a new build of a website to the production server (things might go smoothly, or I might be spending several hours trying to track down some configuration error).
If I can survive until tomorrow without filling my car with gas and getting food at the store, it doesn’t make any sense to do those “fixed tasks” first and then risk not having enough time to complete the “flexible” (yet more immediately important) task.
Your examples conflate the idea of a task that takes a variable amount of time and task that isn’t particularly important. You need to shower and dress for your appointment whether or not it takes 20 minutes every time. What you’re really saying is, “do the most important tasks first then, if you have time, do some less important tasks”—which isn’t particularly insightful.
“do the most important tasks first then, if you have time, do some less important tasks”
yes; this is of crucial importance and even though it might be obvious to you; it is often not obvious to other people. As well—often tasks have vague importance. Where it might be hard to say which one is more important. In cases where the super important website deployment and some less important tasks are on the list, definitely it’s easy to see the super-important thing taking precedent. but in cases where you need to choose between groceries, going for a walk, and checking facebook—it might be harder to decide. In that case—consider the task that can most easily be cut off. for example; it’s can be harder to cut “a walk” in half because you might be halfway home. But it could be easier to cut groceries in half by only buying some of the groceries and rushing around the store.
I know it will take me 10 minutes to get gas, 30 minutes to go to the grocery store and some as-of-yet unknown amount of time to deploy a new build of a website to the production server (things might go smoothly, or I might be spending several hours trying to track down some configuration error).
If I can survive until tomorrow without filling my car with gas and getting food at the store, it doesn’t make any sense to do those “fixed tasks” first and then risk not having enough time to complete the “flexible” (yet more immediately important) task.
Your examples conflate the idea of a task that takes a variable amount of time and task that isn’t particularly important. You need to shower and dress for your appointment whether or not it takes 20 minutes every time. What you’re really saying is, “do the most important tasks first then, if you have time, do some less important tasks”—which isn’t particularly insightful.
yes; this is of crucial importance and even though it might be obvious to you; it is often not obvious to other people. As well—often tasks have vague importance. Where it might be hard to say which one is more important. In cases where the super important website deployment and some less important tasks are on the list, definitely it’s easy to see the super-important thing taking precedent. but in cases where you need to choose between groceries, going for a walk, and checking facebook—it might be harder to decide. In that case—consider the task that can most easily be cut off. for example; it’s can be harder to cut “a walk” in half because you might be halfway home. But it could be easier to cut groceries in half by only buying some of the groceries and rushing around the store.