The chaos of deadlines: how to plan things to get everything done. How to get everything done! (time management) Two minute rule

Hello friends!

There are many ways to kill time - and not one to resurrect it.

At the moment, I am running 3 projects on the Internet and I have quite a lot of things to do, and a competent approach to this issue helps me to manage them. But it wasn't always like this. I learned how to manage my time wisely in Anna Vsekhsvyatskaya’s course “I have time for everything.” This course is designed specifically for women. It helped me a lot, so now I recommend it to all women who have problems managing their time. And if you enter the promo code mir, you will receive a 10% discount when ordering a course.

In this article, I will share basic rules that will help you get much more done.

Now ask yourself: Do you use your time wisely, achieve your goals and clearly know what you want, or do you constantly put things off until tomorrow, don’t set goals for yourself and just go with the flow of life!?

Didn't think about it! How so? This is your life and you have only one!

Either you manage your time, or others begin to manage your time.

And in order to become the master of your time, you need to know the basics of personal effectiveness and follow them. In the video I talk about how I manage my time and what helps me get everything done.

1. Define your goals.

To do this, take the time to understand yourself and understand what you want from life: who to become, what to do and what to have. After all, nothing is impossible in the world and it depends only on us how interesting and happy she will be. Therefore, understand yourself and make a list of goals so that you have a clear understanding of which direction to develop and what to spend your time on.

2. Organize your day.

Scientists have proven that if you go to bed at 22.00 and get up at 06.00, your body will be much more rested, and in the morning you will feel cheerful and energetic. I recommend taking this into account. I try to stick to this routine, but if you can't go to bed at 10 pm, then at least spend no more than 8 hours sleeping per day. This time is enough to get enough sleep.

3. Plan ahead.

Choose a time and schedule all your tasks for the week. For example, I do this on Sunday. Write no more than 5–6 things a day so as not to overload yourself. Choose the optimal load for yourself. Since the goal is achieved not by the one who does many things at once, but by the one who does things leading to the goal regularly.

4. Break a big task into small steps.

This way you will gradually and regularly move towards achieving your goal. After all, if you don’t break down a major task into steps, it may be put off day after day, and you won’t know how to approach it.

As you can see, this business consists of small steps. When you write down these steps, the task will no longer seem so scary and you will complete it much faster. Therefore, be sure to write down all the tasks that consist of many steps for yourself, this will allow you to complete them much faster.

5. Turn off distracting signals.

6. Spend no more than one hour a day on social media. networks and mail.

Set aside a specific time for this. It is best to do this in the evening, when most of the important things are done.

7. Learn to say no.

There are a lot of distractions in the world we live in. Early in the morning a friend may call you and ask you to help him with something or go somewhere. Such an intervention can take up a lot of your time, and if it happens regularly, then you may not get off the ground at all. Yes, you need to help, but you shouldn’t do it to your own detriment.

When I lived on Koh Samui, every day I received offers to go somewhere, see some new place or do something interesting. Yes, this is all, of course, great, but at the same time I understood that I had urgent matters, my own plan, and I said “no.” I decided for myself: I work two days, rest one day. This way I had time to see new places, go to the beach, and do all the necessary things.

Therefore, before you start changing your plans, think about what is more important to you and whether someone else’s request or proposal can be postponed to another day.

8. If the matter takes no more than 5 minutes, do it right away.

There is no need to write down such a thing in your diary as, for example, calling and making an appointment with the hairdresser. It’s better to call and make an appointment right away so as not to waste any more time on this.

9. Delegate.

You don't have to do everything yourself. You can entrust them to other people, machines or services that will do your work faster and better. Of course, in order to delegate some of your responsibilities, you need to pay. But it's not a lot of money. Many people are mistaken that delegation is only available to wealthy people. In fact, this is not the case. You can turn to a freelancer who will take on any task on your project and do it much faster and with better quality, since he is an expert in this matter. This could be writing sales text, programming, creating a banner or logo, and much more. You can find such freelancers on the website work— zilla. com . Carrying out such small tasks as a freelancer is quite inexpensive.

Outsourcing necessary in cases where you want to transfer some business for a long period of time. For example, you can outsource bookkeeping or house cleaning services to such companies. You can also hire a personal assistant if you have a lot of small tasks that do not require professional knowledge. You can hire such an assistant for a long time.

In addition to people, you can seek help from services that will simplify your work. For example, instead of manually writing posts on VKontakte, you can turn to a service that will automatically publish posts in your group.

You can also ask for help from various machines. Now there are a large number of them. They are especially good at helping with housekeeping. These could be multicookers, dishwashers, washing machines, anything. Also, instead of wasting time on shopping, you can order the necessary goods online, which will also save your time.

10 Analyze.

At the end of the week, see if you have completed all the things you planned. If not, then try to understand where you went astray and what exactly prevented you.

If you feel that despite planning you are still not using your time effectively enough, take a time tracking exercise. To do this, every day for a week, write down all the things you do, and also indicate the time during which you do something. Thanks to this, you will understand what distracts you and takes up the necessary time. Sometimes you take on too much work and the next day you don't feel like doing work at all.

By analyzing your experience, you will develop an ideal system for managing your time and use it effectively, which means achieving your goals. Consequently, your life will change dramatically in the next couple of years.

See you again!

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Think about your biggest failures in life. Quarrels, misunderstandings that changed your whole life in a negative way. Failed exams, job interviews, etc. The reasons for such failures are similar, as a rule, they are the result of poor preparation and rash actions. Below we will look at how to manage everything and plan the day/week.

What happens if an athlete stops training a month before the Olympics - his skills and muscle strength will weaken significantly and he will take one of the last places. As in sports, in any business you need good preparation, without which the chances of success are greatly reduced.

The key factor in preparation is planning. There is "6 P rule": Proper planning prevents productivity loss.

Below I will give 7 ways to manage everything with the help of proper planning of the day and week.

Method 1: Make a list of tasks for the day

What is a task list for?

First, let's look at how our brain works. It was found that we can keep no more than 7+-2 things or important thoughts under control in our heads. To make sure of this, count how many circles are shown in the pictures:

Rice. 1	Rice. 2	Rice. 3

Rice. 4	Rice. 5

Most likely, one glance is enough to determine the number of objects in Figures 1, 3 and 4.

And for drawings 2 and 5, one glance was not enough; it was necessary to count separately. The fewer objects, the easier it is to manage them. The brain reaches its limit when the number becomes more than 7+-2.

The same is true with thoughts; at the same time we can store no more than 7+-2 tasks in our head, the rest is forgotten.

Let's imagine a real life situation

You get up in the morning and go to work, on the way you remember that:

You need to buy a gift for a loved one's birthday;
- Pay for the Internet before it’s turned off.

When you arrived at work:

Find out that you need to prepare a report today;
- I came in and a colleague asked me to send him a contract template;
- After the morning planning meeting, the boss asked me to do 3 things.

Your head is already full, but time does not stop; a client, a loved one, a colleague may call you, an unforeseen situation may happen, etc. What happens in this case? We forget something. If we forget to buy groceries in the store, then nothing bad will happen, of course, but we can forget something more important: not coming to an important meeting, taking medications, etc.

In addition, the more things we have in our heads, the worse our analytical abilities become, since energy is spent on memorizing information.

Benefits of a notebook

Notebook - eliminates all the problems described above and has the following advantages compared to working from memory:

1) Writing down is always faster than remembering. For example, writing down a cell phone number is 10-100 times faster than memorizing it. Same with business.

2) Energy Saving. In order not to forget important things, we often remember, which wastes energy. A notebook solves this problem.

3) Reliability. What is written with a pen cannot be cut out with an axe. Any task can be forgotten due to fatigue, emotions or other matters. But if you write down tasks, it is much more difficult to forget.

You can keep a list of tasks on a regular sheet of paper, a notepad, but it is better if it is a notebook, because it has a calendar. The list of tasks for the day can be on a computer or paper. The most important thing is that you have it, because it is the basis for planning, like the foundation of a house. If the house does not have a foundation, then the maximum that can be built is a small one-story structure without heating made of plastic or plywood. Also in planning, of course, you can do without a list of tasks for the day or a notebook, but you will be very limited in your capabilities.

The most important thing in a task list or notebook is a list of things that need to be done during the day. The second most important part is the calendar, in it you can see the tasks that need to be completed on a given day. Therefore, a notebook is preferable to a regular list because it has a calendar.

Method 2: Work with your task list every day

The most important thing when working with a time organizer or notebook is to work in accordance with the previously drawn up plan. To do this, regularly look through your notebook to find out if you have done everything you planned for today. You can view the list after you complete the current task. It is very important to list important things that need to be done today in your organizer.

Method 3: First write it down, then do it

If a new task arrives and it is not urgent, then write it down in your notebook first and start only when it comes to it. Any new tasks seem very important and we begin to take on everything: checking mail, making phone calls, etc. But as soon as you first begin to write down all incoming tasks in a notebook, you will find that next to this entry there are more important tasks.

All movements of the right side of the body are controlled by the left hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for logic. When we write down a new task with our right hand, we activate the left hemisphere of our brain, which is responsible for logic. Activating logic when writing with our right hand will help us make better decisions.

By writing everything down in a notebook before you start work, you'll be able to get the most important things done during the day and be able to combat the unimportant tasks that constantly distract you.

4 way. First important, then urgent tasks

All planned tasks should be completed in order of their importance, and then in order of execution time. Starting with the most important ones and gradually moving on to the less important ones. Write things down in your plan for today in order of their importance, then sort them by urgency and start working on the highest priorities.

For example, an acquaintance called you to chat. A phone call, an urgent matter, because the phone is ringing right now, but it may not be important. If you have more significant tasks, say, preparing a work report, then it is better to first complete all the more important tasks, in particular the report, and then, if you have time, call back and talk with a friend. But not vice versa, otherwise, due to an insignificant call, you may not have time to do a more important thing.

Importance takes precedence over urgency. You should take on urgent matters only if you are in control of the situation and are confident that you will manage all the more important ones.

Method 5: Electronic organizer

There are a huge number of electronic notebooks. An electronic diary has undeniable advantages over paper ones:

A. Time saving. With an electronic diary, you don’t need to re-write tasks from the last day to the current one, and you can work with it both on a computer and on a phone or tablet, synchronizing data on all devices.

B. Volumes and speed: You can very quickly copy a large amount of information into an electronic diary for further work. For example: You want to bake a banana cake in the evening and you need to write down the necessary ingredients before you go to the store. If you have an electronic organizer, then you can quickly copy the entire recipe from the Internet into your diary, literally in a matter of seconds. At the same time, it will take you more time to write down only the ingredients on a piece of paper by hand than to write the entire recipe electronically. And in the store it will be enough to turn on the diary on your phone to quickly understand what to buy.

B. Convenience. An ordinary notebook is inconvenient to use in transport, a store, or on vacation; in these places it is difficult to write down and look at notes because the paper diary is large and you need 2 hands to open it. But the electronic notebook on your phone will always be with you, no matter where you are: Transport, store, street. You can quickly take notes on your computer and then sync so those notes appear on your phone in seconds.

Method 6: Plan your next day in the evening

Make an action plan for the next day in advance, the best time is at the end of the working day, before you go home. This simple action will help you get a better night's sleep, because often the cause of insomnia is that in the evening we go over in our memory all the important things that we need to do tomorrow so as not to forget them in the morning. And it is these thoughts that prevent us from relaxing and falling asleep peacefully, but if you write down all your plans, you will ensure not only a restful sleep, but also an evening.

In addition, when you make a plan in advance, your subconscious mind will constantly work all night on how best to do what you planned. The solution to complex problems may come to you at breakfast, on the way to work, or even in the middle of the night. It is in the morning that new ideas most often come and you will use this time with maximum benefit, you just need to write a to-do list for the next day in advance.

By the way, if you have questions that you want answered, then before you fall asleep and close your eyes, ask them to yourself, preferably out loud, and immediately fall asleep. And in the morning, get ready to immediately write down all the thoughts that may appear the moment you wake up or later.

Method 7: Plan complex tasks at the peak of your activity

Make a plan for the day so that work that requires a lot of energy comes at the peak of your activity, when you have a lot of energy and are most productive. As a rule, the peak of activity begins in the morning, because after sleep you have a lot of strength and a fresh mind, but it happens that the peak of activity can occur in the afternoon and even evening hours.

The most energy-consuming activities are those for which you have no talent.. As a rule, these are the ones activities you most don't want to do. These tasks are called frogs in time management because these tasks are unpleasant to start doing. There is a rule in time management - start the day with a frog., i.e. from an unpleasant matter. This rule will allow you to work more efficiently, because usually it is in the morning that you have the most strength, and these forces are extremely important to do the most unpleasant work.

I’ll give an example from life, I have a technical mindset, so exact sciences such as: Physics and mathematics are easy for me, but humanitarian subjects are more difficult, so when I was at school, I often prepared for an English test in the morning. I got up 1-2 hours before school and studied English. It was in the morning that I had the most energy, so at this time it was easier for me to complete a complex task for which I had the least talent. The results of the preparation exceeded all my expectations, I received excellent or good results in a subject that I did not like.

Plan the most unpleasant tasks for peak activity, for example, in the morning, and you will see how you will get more done and your personal efficiency will increase.

P.S. If you have difficulties or questions about the article you read, as well as about the topics: Psychology (bad habits, experiences, etc.), sales, business, time management, etc. ask them to me, I will try to help. Consultation via Skype is also possible.

P.P.S. You can also take the online training “How to get 1 hour of extra time.” Write comments and your additions;)

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Books on time management often contradict each other: some recommend immediately completing any small task, some believe that you need to start with the most difficult one, and some, on the contrary, that you need to deliberately put things off until later. Journalist Brian Christian and cognitive scientist Tom Griffiths are confident that in order to do everything, people need to use the algorithms that computers use - with their help, it has long been possible to find the optimal option, taking into account all the given conditions. Alpina Publisher published their book Algorithms for Life: Simple Ways to Make the Right Decisions, in which the authors explain how to apply complex mathematical formulas to solve everyday problems. T&P publishes a fragment.

The Science of Pastime

Although the problem of time management is as old as time itself, the science of planning was born in the machine shops of the Industrial Revolution. In 1874, Frederick Taylor, the son of a wealthy lawyer, abandoned his studies at Harvard to become an assistant engineer at a hydraulic equipment plant in Philadelphia. Four years later he completed his apprenticeship and began working at Midval Steelworks - first as a lathe operator, then as a machine shop foreman, and eventually became chief engineer. During this time, he came to the conclusion that the operating time of equipment (and people) was not used very effectively. This conclusion formed the basis of the discipline he developed, which he called “scientific management.”

Taylor created a production dispatch department, the key element of which was an information stand on which the work schedule in the workshop was posted. The schedule indicated what task each machine was currently performing and what tasks were next in line. This practice would also form the basis of the work of Taylor's colleague Henry Gant. In the second decade of the 20th century, he would create his famous diagram, which would go on to help realize some of the century's most ambitious civil engineering projects, from the Hoover Dam to the US Interstate Highway System. A century later, Gantt charts still adorn the office walls and laptop screens of project managers at companies like Amazon, IKEA and SpaceX.

Taylor and Gantt made planning the object of their research and gave it a visual and conceptual form. However, they did not resolve the fundamental question: which planning system is better? The first hint that this question could in principle be answered did not appear until several decades later, in 1954, in a scientific paper published by research mathematician Selmer Johnson of the RAND Corporation.

Johnson explored a bookbinding scenario: a book would first be printed on one press and then bound using another. But the most common example of the paired operation of two devices in our lives is the laundry room. When you wash items, they first go through the washing machine and then go into the dryer. The amount of time each process will take depends directly on what you are downloading. If the clothes are heavily soiled, it will take longer to wash, but the drying time will not differ from usual. Larger loads will take longer to dry, but washing will take the same amount of time as a smaller load. And here Johnson asked the question: “If you need to wash and dry several conventional sets of clothes in one go, what is the best way to organize this?”

His answer was that you need to determine which process will take you the least time, that is, choose the set that will take the least amount of time to wash or dry. If the set is washed quickly, start exactly from him. If a minimum amount of time is required for drying, go for this kit. last of all. Repeat the same steps for the remaining sets of things, moving from the beginning and end of the schedule to the middle.

Intuitively, Johnson’s algorithm works because, regardless of the chosen sequence of loading laundry, at the very beginning only the washing machine will work, while the dryer will be idle (and at the very end, when all that remains is to dry the washed items, vice versa). If you wash things on short programs at the very beginning, and dry the smallest number of things at the end, then we will increase the period when both the washing machine and the dryer work simultaneously. This way we can minimize the time spent in the laundry room. Johnson's analysis was the basis for the first optimal scheduling algorithm: start with a short wash and end with a half-empty dryer. […]

The planning problem that is significant to us really concerns only one device - ourselves.

Coping with deadlines

Planning work one device, you immediately run into a problem. Johnson's research on bookbinding was based on minimizing the time required to do a job with two machines. In the case of managing one device, if we complete all assigned tasks, any schedule will require the same amount of time and determining the order of tasks will be meaningless.

This is a fundamental and paradoxical fact, and it is worth repeating it again and fixing it in our consciousness. If you only have one device and plan to complete all the tasks assigned, then any order of tasks will take you the same amount of time.

Thus we have the first lesson in planning the operation of one device even before we begin the discussion, namely: clearly define your goals. We can't declare a winner among planning methods until we understand how to keep score. This question also applies to computer science: before you have a plan, you must define a set of criteria. It turns out that the choice of criteria directly determines which planning approach will be the best.

The first scientific work on task scheduling for a single device followed immediately after Johnson's research and proposed a number of compelling criteria. A simple optimal strategy was developed for each criterion.

We are accustomed to the fact that, for example, for each task there is a deadline and an acceptable amount of delay. Thus, we can introduce the term “maximum delay in completing a set of tasks” - the largest failure among these tasks to meet the deadline (this is what your employer will take into account when assessing your performance). For retail or service customers, for example, the maximum latency to complete a task corresponds to the longest wait time for the customer.

If you would like to minimize this maximum delay time, you should start with the task that is due first, and move towards the task that can be completed as soon as possible. The strategy known as "soon due date", is actually largely intuitive. (For example, in a service industry, where each customer's deadline begins the moment they walk through the door, this strategy involves serving customers in the order in which they arrive.) But some of the findings are surprising. For example, it doesn’t matter at all how long it will take to complete each specific task: it doesn’t affect the plan in any way, so, in fact, you don’t need to know it. All that matters is knowing when the task is due.

You may already be using an upcoming due date strategy to manage your workload, then you don't need to listen to programmers' advice when choosing a strategy. But most likely you don't know what it is optimal strategy. It would be more accurate to say that only one specific indicator is important to you - reducing the time of your maximum tardiness. If you do not pursue such a goal, then another strategy may be more suitable for you.

For example, let's take a refrigerator. […] Each product has a different shelf life, so consuming them according to the expiration date principle seems like the smartest idea. However, this is not the end of the story. The algorithm for the upcoming execution date, or in our case the date of spoilage of the product, is optimal for reducing the time of maximum delay, which means minimizing the degree of spoilage one of the most corrupt the product you are about to eat. This is probably not the most appetizing criterion.

Perhaps we would like instead minimize the amount products that will spoil. And then we better resort to the help of Moore's algorithm. In accordance with it, we begin the process of selecting products based on the principle of the earliest expiration date, planning to consume the most perishable product first, one product at a time. But as soon as we realize that we won’t be able to eat the next item on time, we take a break, go back to all the items we’ve already planned, and throw away the largest item (the one that will take us the most days to eat).

For example, we may have to give up the melon, which can only be eaten in a few sittings. Thus, we follow this scheme every time, laying out products according to their shelf life and sending the largest product out of the planned ones, which we do not have time to eat, to the trash can. The moment we can consume all the remaining food without any of it spoiling, we have achieved our goal.

Moore's algorithm minimizes the amount of food you would have to throw away. Of course, you can compost the food or just give it to a neighbor. But if we are talking about production or paperwork, when you cannot simply abandon a project, and it is the number of projects not completed on time (and not the degree of delay in their execution) that is of great importance to you, then Moore’s algorithm will not tell you how deal with overdue tasks. Anything you left out of the main part of the plan can be done at the very end in any order, since these questions already were not resolved on time.

How to deal with things

Sometimes meeting deadlines is not our biggest concern. We just want to redo everything: the more things we have to do, the faster we want to deal with them. It turns out that translating this seemingly elementary desire into the plane of planning criteria is very difficult.

The first approach is to think abstractly. We previously noted that when scheduling a single device, we cannot influence the total execution time of all tasks, but if, for example, each individual task is a waiting client, there is a way to reduce the time as much as possible collective expectations of all clients.

Imagine that as of Monday morning you have to devote four working days to one project and one day to another. If you finished a large project on Thursday afternoon (four days passed) and then completed a small project on Friday afternoon (five days passed), then the total customer wait time was nine days. If you do the tasks in reverse order, you'll finish a small project on Monday and a large project on Friday, with only a six-day wait time. You'll be busy full-time anyway, but you'll be able to save your clients three days of their time together. Scheduling theorists call this criterion the sum of execution times.

Minimizing the sum of execution times as much as possible leads us to a very simple optimal algorithm - the algorithm shortest service time: Do what you can do fastest first.

Even if your job does not involve impatient customers waiting for their issue to be resolved, the algorithm for the shortest service time will help you cope with with your affairs. (You may not be surprised by this parallel to the advice in Getting Things Done: to immediately begin any task that will take you no more than two minutes to complete.) It is impossible to change the time it will take you to complete the entire amount of work, but The algorithm for the shortest service time will make your life easier by reducing the number of outstanding tasks in the shortest possible time. The sum of completion times criterion can be explained another way: imagine that you are focused only on reducing your to-do list. If every unfinished task irritates you, then quickly resolving simple issues can ease your suffering a little.

Of course, not all unfinished business is the same in nature. Of course, you should put out the fire in the kitchen first, postponing putting out the “fire” at work: sending an urgent letter to the client in this case will wait, even if eliminating the fire in the kitchen will take you more time. In planning, the different importance of tasks is expressed by the variable weight. When you complete things on your list, this weight can be figurative and expressed only in the weight of the mountain that will fall from your shoulders with the completion of this or that task.

The time to complete a task shows how long you bear this burden and the maximum reduction in the amount of time weight completion (this is the time it takes to complete any task multiplied by its weight) will minimize the weight on your shoulders while you deal with other things on the list.

For this purpose, the optimal strategy would be a slightly improved version of the shortest service time algorithm. Let's divide the weight of each task by the time required to complete it, start solving the issue with the highest indicator of the ratio of importance per unit of time (to develop our metaphor, we can call this indicator specific gravity) and then move from issue to issue as the value of the indicator decreases . Because it can be difficult to determine the importance of each of your daily tasks, this strategy suggests using a rough rule of thumb: prioritize the task that will not only take you twice as long as the others, but will also be twice as important as the others.

In the business world, weight can be assessed in monetary terms: how much money completing a particular task will bring you. By dividing the reward by the completion time, we get the hourly rate for each task. (If you're a freelancer, this can be especially effective for you: simply divide the cost of each project you undertake by its size, and work on projects in order of decreasing hourly rate.) Interestingly, the weighting strategy also appears in research on animal foraging: where dollars and cents turn into nuts and berries. Animals, trying to get maximum energy from food, look for food based on the ratio of calorie content and time spent searching and eating. […]

Selecting tasks

Let's return to where we started our discussion about planning the operation of one device. As the saying goes, “a man with only a watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never sure what time it is.” Computer science can offer us optimal algorithms for any criteria that exist for the operation of one device, but only we can choose the criterion. In many cases, we ourselves decide what problem we want to solve now.

This allows us to radically rethink the problem of procrastination - a classic pathology of time management. We are used to thinking that this is an erroneous algorithm. What if it's completely the other way around? What if this is the optimal solution? wrong task?

In one episode of The X-Files, the main character Mulder, bedridden (literally), was about to fall victim to a neurotic vampire. To save himself, he knocked over a bag of seeds on the floor. The vampire, powerless in the face of his mental illness, began to bend down to pick them up, seed by seed. Meanwhile, dawn came - before Mulder became the monster's prey. Programmers would call this a ping attack or a network denial-of-service attack: if you force a system to perform an infinite number of trivial tasks, the most important things will be lost in the chaos.

We usually associate procrastination with laziness and so-called avoidance behavior, but symptoms of procrastination can just as easily appear in people (or computers, or even vampires) who sincerely and enthusiastically strive to get things done as quickly as possible.

In a 2014 study by David Rosenbaum of the University of Pennsylvania, participants were asked to carry one or two heavy buckets to the opposite end of a hallway. One of the buckets was located next to the study participant, the second was further down the corridor. To the surprise of the experimenters, people immediately grabbed the bucket standing next to them and dragged it along the corridor, while passing by a second bucket that could only be dragged part of the distance. As the researchers noted, “These seemingly irrational choices reflect a predisposition to procrastination. We introduce this term to define the phenomenon when we rush to complete some intermediate task, even at the cost of additional physical effort.” Putting off solving a big problem in favor of solving a lot of simple issues can similarly be seen as advancing the achievement of an intermediate goal, which, in other words, means that procrastinators act (optimally!) to reduce the number of unsolved problems in their thoughts as quickly as possible. This does not mean that their strategy is not effective in getting things done. They have a great strategy, but for the wrong criteria.

Working with a computer poses a certain danger when we need to consciously and clearly choose planning criteria: the user interface can subtly (or intrusively) force us to use its criteria. The modern smartphone user, in particular, is accustomed to seeing icons on application icons that signal the number of tasks that we must complete in each of them. If the mailbox notifies us of a certain number of unread messages, then it turns out that all messages by default have the same importance. In this case, can we be blamed for choosing a non-weighted model of the algorithm for the shortest service time in solving this problem (deal with the simplest emails first and delay the work with the most complex ones until the last) in order to quickly reduce the number of unread emails?

Live by the criterion, die by the criterion. If all tasks are truly of equal importance, this is what we would have to do. But if we don't want to get caught up in the small stuff, we need to take action to get to the bottom of our to-do list. And here it all starts with the realization that the problem about one device that we are solving is the same one that we we want It's up to you to decide at the moment. (In the case of app icons, if we can't get them to reflect our real priorities, or can't resist the urge to optimally reduce that backlog of tasks that challenge us, then perhaps it's best to simply turn them off.)

Focus on not just solving problems, but solving weight questions while doing the most important work at any given time looks like a panacea for procrastination. But, as practice shows, even this is not enough. And a team of experts in the field of computer planning will be convinced of this under extremely dramatic circumstances: on the surface of Mars, in front of the whole world.

Changing priorities and managing queues

It was the summer of 1997, and humanity had many reasons to rejoice. For example, for the first time, an all-terrain vehicle explored the surface of Mars. The $150 million Mars Pathfinder reached speeds of 16,000 mph, crossed 309 million miles of empty space, and landed on air cushions on the red rocky surface of Mars.

And then he stalled.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers were worried and perplexed. The Mars Explorer surprisingly began to ignore its key task with the highest priority (data exchange via the information bus) and began to solve issues of medium importance. What happened? Did the robot really not understand what it was doing?

Suddenly, the Mars Pathfinder detected that the data bus had been idle for an unacceptably long time and, unable to call for help, initiated a complete reboot on its own, costing the mission almost an entire working day. A day or more later it happened again.

Working feverishly, the lab team was eventually able to reproduce and then diagnose the behavior. The root of the evil turned out to be the classic danger of planning called "change of priorities". What happens is that a low-priority task grabs a system resource (say, access to a database) to run on, but then a timer interrupts the task in the middle, pausing it, and activating the system manager. The dispatcher is ready to run a high priority task, but cannot because the database is busy. Thus, the dispatcher moves lower down the task queue, running various unblocked tasks of medium importance, instead of running the highest priority task (which is blocked) or the low priority task that is blocking work (and which ended up at the very end of the queue after medium priority tasks). In such a nightmare scenario, the system may ignore the highest priority task for a very long time*.

* Remarkably, the head of Mars Pathfinder's software management team believed that the problem was due to "deadline pressure" and that during software development, fixing this particular problem was considered a low priority. Thus, the root cause essentially became a reflection of the problem itself.

Once the lab engineers figured out that the problem was a shift in priorities, they wrote code to solve the problem and sent it millions of miles to the Mars Pathfinder. The solution was inheritance priorities. This means that if a low-priority task blocks a resource of a high-priority task, then the low-priority task must immediately “inherit” the high priority of the task it is blocking.

Comedian Mitch Hedberg tells this story: “I was in a casino, relaxing, and suddenly a guy came up to me and said: “You should change seats. You've blocked the fire exit." You would think that I would not have planned to run if the fire had started.” Casino employee's argument: this is a change of priorities. Hedberg's counter-argument: inheritance of priorities. Hedberg, slumped in a chair in front of the fleeing crowd, lingers, putting his low-priority task ahead of the high-priority task of people intent on saving their lives. But everything will change if he inherits their priority (in front of a panicked crowd, her priority is inherited quite quickly). As Hedberg says, "If you're made of flammable materials and you have legs, you'll never block a fire exit."

The moral of the story is that even a love of problem solving is sometimes not enough to avoid fatal planning mistakes. And even love for solving important problems - too. The willingness to extremely scrupulously solve the most important issue with our usual myopia can lead to what the whole world calls procrastination. As in the case of a stuck car: the more you want to get out, the more you skid. According to Goethe, “that which means more must never be at the mercy of that which means less.” And although there is some wisdom in this, sometimes this statement is not entirely fair. Often the things that mean the most to us cannot be done until the smallest task is completed. Therefore, the only way out is to treat unimportant things with the same importance as those whose implementation they slow down.

When one task cannot be started without first completing another, scheduling theorists call this queuing control. For an operational study, expert Laura Albert McLay relied on this principle to significantly change several aspects of her family's household management.

If you understand how these things work, it can be very helpful. Of course, life with three children is a daily plan... We don't leave the house until the kids have breakfast, and the kids can't start breakfast if I forget to give them spoons. Sometimes we can forget basic things, which then slow everything down. From the point of view of planning algorithms, awareness of this fact and an attempt to keep it in memory is already a great help. This is how I get things done day after day.

In 1978, researcher Jan Karel Lenstra was able to use the same principle when helping his friend Gene move to a new home in Berkeley. “Gene was constantly putting off some task, without finishing which we could not proceed to urgent matters.” As Lenstra recalls, they were supposed to return the truck, but they needed it to return some equipment, and they needed the equipment to fix something in the apartment. This repair could wait (that's why everything was postponed), but the truck needed to be returned urgently. According to Lenstra, he explained to a friend that the task preceding the most urgent one was even more urgent. Since Lenstra is known as a key figure in planning theory and was more than entitled to give such advice, he could not resist a subtle irony. This situation became a case demonstrating a change in priorities due to queue management. And perhaps the most outstanding expert in the field of queue management is considered to be the narrator’s friend - the same Gene, or Eugene Lawler.

Speed ​​limiter

Lawler studied mathematics at the University of Florida, then began his graduate work at Harvard in 1954, although he left before completing his degree. After law school, military service, and factory work, he returned to Harvard in 1958, completed his degree, and took a job at the University of Michigan. Arriving at Berkeley in 1969 while on sabbatical, he was arrested while protesting the Vietnam War. Lawler became a faculty member at UC Berkeley the following year and gained a reputation as a "social conscience" in the computer science department. After his death in 1994, the Association for Computing Machinery created the Lawler Award for those who demonstrate the humanistic potential of computer science through their work.

Lawler spent many years of his life thinking about how to efficiently execute a sequence of tasks, but his career path took a curious twist.

In his first study of turn control, Lawler suggested that this phenomenon could be easily controlled. For example, consider the earliest due date algorithm that minimizes the maximum delay in executing a set of tasks. If your tasks have a precedence relationship, then things get more complicated: you can't just plow through your to-do list based on deadlines alone if some things can't be started before others are completed. However, in 1968, Lawler proved that it's not such a big deal if you can build your to-do list backwards: just pick out those tasks that don't depend on other tasks, and place the one with the most "remote" deadline at the very end list. Then simply repeat this process, each time considering only those tasks that are not a prerequisite for completing other (not yet scheduled) tasks.

But Lawler's keen eye revealed something interesting. The shortest service time algorithm, as we have seen, is the optimal solution if our goal is to cross as many tasks off our to-do list as quickly as possible. But if some of your tasks are interconnected by precedence relationships, there is no easy or obvious way to adapt the shortest service time algorithm to that situation. Despite the fact that the problem seems elementary, neither Lawler nor other researchers were able to find an effective solution for it.

Moreover, Lawler himself soon discovered that this situation belonged to the category of problems that, in the opinion of most programmers, have no effective solution. Experts call them difficult to solve.

[…] Not every clearly defined problem has a solution. In planning, it is obvious that each set of objectives and constraints implies the presence of any the best order of execution, therefore planning problems, in essence, have a solution, but there may be cases for which there is simply no unambiguous algorithm that can select the optimal schedule for completing work in a reasonable time.

This fact led researchers like Lawler and Lenstra to an inevitable question. So what is the share of planning problems that are difficult to solve? Twenty years after Selmer Johnson launched planning theory with his work on bookbinding, the search for individual solutions has become the grandest and most ambitious task yet - a quest to map the entire terrain of planning theory.

The researchers came to the conclusion that even the most subtle change in the conditions of a planning problem can often move it into the category of difficult to solve. For example, Moore's algorithm minimizes the number of unfinished tasks (or spoiled products) in the case when all tasks are of equal importance, but if one of the tasks is more important, the problem becomes difficult to solve and no algorithm is able to offer an optimal schedule. Likewise, if you have to wait until a certain point to start doing things, then almost all planning tasks that we could easily and effectively solve without such a condition become difficult to solve. Banning the trash can from being taken outside until the garbage truck arrives might be a reasonable measure of order in the city, but it will completely lose control over your schedule.

The definition of the boundaries of planning theory continues to this day. A recent study showed that about 7% of all problems are still unknown. This is the unknown side of planning. Of the 93% of problems known to us, only 9% have an effective solution, and the remaining 84% are considered difficult to solve. In other words, for most planning problems, standard solutions are not suitable.

If organizing your schedule effectively seems overwhelming, maybe it is. However, the algorithms we have discussed can be a starting point for solving such difficult problems: even if the solution is not perfect, at least it will be competent.

Greetings, dear blog readers. Very little time will pass and another year will go down in history. Yes, the old year ends, giving way to a new one. And on New Year’s Eve it is customary to take stock of what has been done, what has been achieved, what has worked and what has not. It’s good, even great, if in the past year all your dreams, goals, desires came true, and the planned things were accomplished. And if not?

A year ago, summing up the results, I was horrified: of all the planned things, I managed to do a little less than half, many plans, dreams and desires remained unfulfilled. Why did it happen? I tried, I did something, I worked, I did, I achieved. Why didn't you manage to do everything?

After thinking a little, reading books and googling, I put together a simple method for myself on how to plan and implement things, carry out my plans, dreams and desires. I started putting it into practice. And so, summing up the results of the past year, I discovered that more than 70% of what was planned and planned came true. More than last time, which means the technique works! If I can do it, then so can you, dear blog readers. I’m sharing the technique. It is universal, suitable for main work, household chores, and freelancing. You can start using it at any time.

Unloading your head

A modern person has a whole round dance of all kinds of plans, goals, desires spinning in his head. If you stop it and examine it in detail, then at a first approximation you can see such a mess... It’s not clear where to start. Therefore, we take a plate and a spoon, a sheet of clean paper and a pen, and write out the planned things from our heads. You can't keep anything in your head. We write everything down. While this is in our heads, we cannot control this round dance. As soon as we write it down, we will be able to calmly analyze, structure and sort everything out. You can write it out not only on paper, but also type it on a computer - electronically in Word or Notepad. The main thing is to try to write down as many plans as possible and keep them in a visible place so as not to forget.

We divide the resulting list into three categories of cases and make three lists from it:

1. Short tasks that can be done in just 5 – 20 minutes;
2. Medium cases, lasting from several minutes and no more than one day or working time;
3. Big, grandiose affairs and projects lasting more than one day. Because of their bulkiness, they are also called “Elephants”.

Now we carefully analyze the lists and select the “hottest” things that need to be done in the near future. We ask ourselves the question: “What can I do right now?” We try to redo all the small, short matters. Small things hang over us and take up a lot of energy.

The rest of the things need to be planned, think about what to do first, and what to put off until later, and what can not be done at all. Next to each item on the list, put approximate deadlines for completion. Break big “elephant” cases into their component parts. If possible, do each part separately, and then at one point connect everything together.

Let's start creating

Lists have been drawn up, plans have been drawn up, and implementation can begin. There are several ways to achieve your goals. There is more than one. If something doesn’t work out, don’t dwell on it, but look for another way. It didn’t work out - we’re looking for a third one. If it doesn’t work straight, we go crooked; if it doesn’t work, we climb over. If it’s a complete failure, then we ask for help.

I offer several techniques that will help make the implementation of your plans more effective and less stressful.

Preparing the workplace

Incredible, but true: if there is order on the table, then there is order in the head. When the workplace is organized, everything is in its place, laid out neatly and on shelves, then working is easy and pleasant. Before work, we prepare the workplace. We remove everything unnecessary and unnecessary. We take care of sufficient lighting. It is important to think through the sequence of actions in advance and prepare the necessary materials and tools.

We say “NO!”

Our lives are full of people: relatives, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, work colleagues - who stress us out with their problems. Moreover, those that we do not need at all. Of course, sometimes you need help...

If “helping” or solving other people’s problems takes up our time, distracts us from our goal, then we boldly say “No!” and postpone the solution to other people’s problems to another time convenient for us. In response to a distracting request, we say: “I’m busy, I have my own things to do.” But if you are a wizard and there is no way to do without your help, try to agree on a time that is convenient for you.

Turning off the breakers

For the brain to reach its maximum level of performance, it needs 20–30 minutes. But, as soon as we begin to reach this level, we begin to be distracted by many different interruptions and distractions such as: Skype, ICQ, social networks, telephone, relatives, home ones. At work, this could be colleagues, bosses, random passers-by, phone calls, and so on.

Imagine, you got down to business, focused on it, delved into the problem. And then you were distracted. You paused and after that again, in a new way, you began to delve into and concentrate. Then they distracted me again, then again and again. And every time you have to re-focus and remember. And then someone wanted to use Skype or knocked on ICQ. As a result, the work that could be done in half an hour, you did all day. At the same time we solved a bunch of unnecessary problems and were very tired.

Therefore, before an important task or activity, we turn off all interrupters: Skype, ICQ, social networks, telephone, we agree with colleagues or family members so that they do not distract or interfere. This, of course, does not mean that you need to completely turn everything off and not turn it on again - you need to choose a time, plan it so that there is enough for everything.

Taking breaks and breaks from work

We are all human and, of course, we get tired. Well, we can’t do the same monotonous work for hours. Sooner or later, fatigue sets in, attention decreases, and performance decreases. I want to give up everything...

So quit and relax! Make yourself a rule: take short five to ten minute rest breaks every 40 to 60 minutes. Breaks can be taken not only by time, but also upon completion of any part, stage or stage of work. During your vacation, try to completely take your mind off work and relax. Let your brain rest. If you work at a computer, then get up, walk around, do a little exercise, eye exercises. Let your body move! The spine and muscles will only tell you “Thank you!”

Truth in the water

Drink water! A simple fact: we are all human and are approximately 80% water. Our brains are made up of 90% water.

If a sufficient amount of fluid does not enter our body, then our brain begins to work, think more slowly, and performance decreases. Water starvation of the brain occurs. In addition, waste and toxins are removed from the body more slowly. Elementary slagging of the body begins.

For productive and efficient work, it is extremely important that the body receives a sufficient amount of clean drinking water. Namely, clean, better than spring water. Try to drink a glass of clean water every 1.5 - 2 hours.

Success Diary

We praise ourselves for the work done! Let's start a Success Diary. Any notebook with 48, or better yet 96, sheets is suitable for the Diary. You can use a computer, but the efficiency will be lower.

Keeping a Diary is very simple. Every evening we take a few minutes of time and write down what was done during the day, what happened, what we can be proud of, what was successful, what was achieved. In general, everything that you can praise yourself for greatly increases your self-esteem!

And with this I say goodbye to you! See you on the blog pages! Good luck and have a great mood!

P.S. For those who want to achieve significant success in Life, I recommend video lessons

Tell me, why did you stop keeping to-do lists for the day, week, month? Why don’t you want to plan your work day anymore and let everything take its course?

Just think and answer these questions...

While you are thinking, I will answer them.

The answer is actually very simple - you don’t want to plan your working day, because you know that you won’t complete the things written down on the list anyway. There will be a thousand and one reasons not to do them - your mother will call you on the phone, and you will spend all your time talking to her; an acquaintance will come to visit, and you and him will drink coffee and eat cake; your favorite series will start showing on TV and you will have a strong desire to watch a new episode.

You are guaranteed to find a reason not to complete your planned activities. And if you don’t find it, then don’t give it 100% - you will only complete 80%-90% of all planned tasks, and forget about the rest.

This is where questions arise...

Why do some people complete all their planned tasks for the day, while others do not? What needs to be done to get things on the list done? How to change this situation for the better?

This problem can be solved in various ways, but today I will share with you only one technique, which I affectionately call “Financial Gestapo!” Those who trained with me are familiar with it. True, it is called differently, but this does not change the essence. The name “Financial Gestapo” sounds good, and it answers 100% of its essence.

The essence of this technique is as follows...

You find in your environment a “Financial Gestapo” who will monitor the execution of your tasks according to the list every evening. This person could be an acquaintance of yours, a business colleague, or just a good friend. The main thing is that he can contact you every evening at a certain time, find out the results of the current day and get acquainted with the plans for the next day.

For every task planned and not completed, you will pay your controller money. The amount can be different, but such that you won’t feel sorry to give, for example, $2, $5 or $10. You didn’t complete one task - you give your controller $2, two - $4, five - $10. I hope the technique is clear. If you have completed all your tasks for the day, there is no need to give anything away.

But there is one big “BUT” - you can lie to your controller and say that you completed the planned task, although in fact you did not. You will need to provide him with proof of the task completed - take a photograph of something you did or did. For example, this could be a photograph of a written article from the monitor screen, a cooked lunch, a cleaned apartment, etc. The main thing is that you can provide documentary evidence that you were engaged in the planned activity and completed it. Since everyone has a mobile phone these days, taking a photo will only take a couple of seconds. It's not as difficult as it seems.

What will the use of the “Financial Gestapo” lead to?

There are a few positives...

1. You will learn how to properly plan your work day.

It would seem that there is nothing complicated about this - just write a to-do list and complete it, but as practice shows, there are features and there are many of them. You will understand how much time it will actually take to achieve a particular goal; you will appreciate the value of your time as you will pay money for every action not completed.

2. You will learn to value your money.

At first, a few dollars per action not completed may not seem to make much difference. In the short term (a few days) this is true, but in the long term you will shell out a couple of hundred dollars and deprive yourself of buying some kind of toy for yourself or something useful for your family.

3. You will build a habit of getting things done into your routine.

Working closely with the “Financial Gestapo”, you can instill in yourself the habit of not only planning things, but also carrying them out. This will not happen immediately, but gradually. Step by step, the habit of doing things and bringing them to completion will be built into your consciousness.

But that’s not all... You can control your controller’s affairs - become his “Financial Gestapo”! You will control each other. You will compete with each other. You will achieve great results together, as you will work in pairs.