I have an idea for a todo list tool that can help you deciding what you should be working on. I'm not sure at this point if it will be worth my lunch hours to work on it - but the idea is worth developing, it might convince me or someone else to do it:
It's goal will be to have a simple interface: a list of tasks in suggested to-do order.
You can "skip" or "finish" the current task. Use skip if you worked on it but its not finished yet - I hate having to tell my todo list what I'm working on I can never keep that going.
You can enter a new task at the bottom or top of the list.
It will be influenced by MyLifeOrganised, various Helpdesk ticketing systems, GTD and Evaluweight.
Tasks might need more attention the longer you not looked at it. (auto-escalation - skip them if you dont want to work on them right now).
Every task has a next action field - this should be filled at any time so you can work on it asap. You can 'complete' the action, this does not nessecarily complete the task..
You can double click on the task to bring up the dialogue to add / edit / remove next actions - a simple list in working order.
The program will always be the one that suggests your next task - you choose to skip it or work on it until it's finished!
However, deciding what order the tasks should be in is the essential component. I don't like setting the priority directly because it's always guesswork (what makes something high priority over medium?). So clearly its important to note: deadline.
Perhaps there should be a general Project screen "build portfolio", "move house".
I'm hoping for you guys to discuss how to make the "prioritizing" as organic as possible, and to find out what factors are involved in prioritizing a task. Entering tasks should be as quick as possible, just the task + deadline - the priority will be assigned based on the project and weighted importance compared to the other projects.
I can think of factors such as: amount of tasks per project (bigger projects are more important?), better defined tasks compared to undefined tasks (is defining them more important than doing them?), deadlines obviously, but there must be others.
