Time Management: Prioritizing Tasks
Junho Son
This article is a continuation of the series Time Management: The Ideal Way to Remind Yourself
Disclaimers: This article is not sponsored by Todoist; the purpose of the article is to demonstrate ways to utilize a digital productivity app to its maximum potential. The productivity app of choice I’ll use for my demonstration is Todoist. As mentioned in the previous episode, the reason I’ll demonstrate this on Todoist is because I think Todoist is optimized for my lifestyle, and probably for many other GEC students, and therefore I have the most experience.
Introduction
Whether it’s on a physical piece of paper, or a digital schedule manager, you deserve a round of applause for actually weighing your options to decide what’s the best medium for you. This one step will make a great leap forward in terms of your productivity. So congratulations to making it this far!
Now that you’ve selected your medium of choice, you’ll have to learn how to use it to its fullest potential. The main challenge of digital productivity apps for people is managing the sheer complexity of its algorithms. You can organize your tasks by date, topics, priority levels, color, time?... the list goes on. But what is the best way of organizing your tasks?
Method #1 - Topics (a.k.a. Projects)
To organize tasks by topics, sometimes given the term projects, means you label a task by which topic it’s most related to. For example, if your Chemistry teacher assigns you 5 pages of stoichiometry practice, you’ll categorize this as Chemistry if you were to organize your tasks according to topics. In practice, it would look like the following:
This method of organizing your tasks is beneficial for 2 main reasons. Both the mental and practical benefits of having a place where you can collect everything you need to do for your class cannot be emphasized enough. For example, having a space to contain all my tasks for AP Statistics allows me to organize my tasks according to the progress of my unit, which will minimize confusion and always keeps me aware of my progress within the course. This method of organizing your tasks could be especially useful if you’re struggling with a particular subject. For example, if you know you’re struggling with Korean Language and Literature, you can simply dedicate one of your desktops to your Korean Language and literature section in Todoist and always look back to make sure you’ve done everything. However, this method has its cons. However, this method of organizing does little to nothing for your workflow, in terms of actual scheduling. Surely every task comes with a “due date” label where you can assign when something’s due, and it is possible to organize your tasks within a particular subject folder by its due date. Yet it’s undeniable that this method isn’t optimized for due date management. Therefore, I recommend this method for users whose main goal is to organize your workflow and not necessarily focused on the reminder part.
Method #2 - Time (a.k.a. Priority)
For those who value the actual time management portion of your productivity app, a better way to organize your schedule would be according to the actual due date. As an experienced procrastinator, personally, I found this method of organizing to be more useful. Not only does it allow me to check multiple projects, which could be both a good thing or a bad thing, but also highlighted what I had to do before I suffered the consequences. However, one problem I faced with this type of organization was the lack of focus. Surely 3 tasks categorized as “Today” is manageable. But once that number reaches 5 and beyond, you become mentally overwhelmed. Another side effect that isn’t particularly obvious is your lack of motivation with this type of organization. Todoist features a beautifully animated graphic captioned #TodoistZero which is supposed to boost your motivation. Ironically this limited my motivation and gave me the habit of constant cramming: the moment you see #TodoistZero, you assume your job is over and immediately let go of your schoolwork, leaving everything else to my tomorrow self.
Crossover and Conclusion
Acknowledging the pros and cons of these two methods of labeling, I’ve pioneered a method that combines topics and time: priority. Besides its constant motivation for procrastination, the labeling method by due dates was almost perfect and the same applies for the limited-scope-dilemma for labeling by topics. Priority encompasses both of them. For example, a relatively minor assessment in AP World History: Modern, one of the most challenging classes I have, can be prioritized as “p2”, a code for priority #2. With the priority ranking, usually reflecting the intensity and significance of a task, the topic/subject, and due date reminders, you’ll have a better understanding of what’s awaiting.
Good luck!