I don't know how one can, in honesty, tout a prioritization scheme that says starting a blog is more important than making friends.
CARVER is an acronym for a military method of target selection. CARVER stands for Criticality, Accessibility, Return (or Recuperability), Vulnerability, Effect, and Recognizability. I’ll explain what these are in a moment.
For every potential target, we assign a value of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) for each CARVER factor, thereby creating a CARVER matrix. Then by summing the six CARVER values, we can calculate a total score for each target, and those scores represent the targets’ relative prioritization. The higher the CARVER score, the more “important” a target becomes.
whereas "make new friends" is an enormous, fuzzy task which won't get you anywhere until you develop a more specific strategy for doing so.
of course, any time you assign any values in any system, your own prejudices are the most unvarying weakness.
ABC computer-based method: In 1989/1990, I started using Lotus Agenda, a PIM which was ideal for automating the recording and dynamic updating of the ToDo list and details of any associated data. Lotus Agenda is obsolete now, and I have not found any software that can perform as well as this since [...]~-IainB (June 12, 2010, 02:08 PM)
I did post an "IDEA" for new Agenda-like software on the DC forum a while back, but no takers. I suspect that more modern generations would not have a clue what it is, and therefore would not want to dig down and develop it, and older one-time assembler programmers like me - who knew Agenda well, but also know our limitations - haven't started to try and develop it, even though we might like to.~
I am playing with InfoQube (was SQLNotes) at present, to see what that offers.-IainB (September 23, 2009, 11:33 PM)
...could you go into more detail about how this worked with Lotus Notes ?
...
How did you get on with IQ ? - I could imagine it being very adaptable to the ABC approach.-tomos (June 13, 2010, 08:47 AM)
In any case, the thing to remember is that any of these methods, if not incorporated into a very concrete and integrated system, won't work. Whatever makes sense to someone must be integrated into concrete steps to follow (in lists, computer software...) each day/week.-Armando (June 13, 2010, 12:47 PM)
One of the most useful things that Agenda could do was to dynamically auto-set a logical attribute called "category" for a task/item, depending on a rule - for example, whether a certain character string was present in the item data. In the Gmail context, this would be like Gmail dynamically setting a label for an email discussion, if (say) the word "frog" was found in that email discussion. I think this sort of capability might be built into mouser's Clipboard Help & Spell - which employs virtual folders and SQL filters - but I haven't had time to play with that to find out for sure.
Hopes this makes sense. I tend to make mistakes when tired, and I am tired now.-IainB (June 13, 2010, 02:33 PM)
Could you provide a visual or specific task vs. task example?
The way you combined all systems you encountered got me curious as to how long it takes for you to put it all together as well as how much your prioritization improved before and after the whole process took place.
I know you mentioned the systems you used and I apologize if I'm being vague. It's not that I didn't understand your post as much as I didn't catch the part where the concreteness and integration locked in.-Paul Keith (June 13, 2010, 06:57 PM)
In IQ I was able to set my priority system exactly how I wanted it. It's pretty straight forward, but with a few twists and complexities most people wouldn't care about.
Personally, I find the other systems most useful in the way that they provoke me to think in different ways about my choices. Over time, incorporating new ways of looking at issues into my routine tends to be helpful. But if I try to follow the actual process, it trips me up. Every time.
Even after you wrote out that well thought out post, did you list your prioritization methods?-Paul Keith (June 17, 2010, 04:05 PM)
My system, although it relies more heavily on gut instinct, also forces simpler choices and averages out the result. Those same experienced officers would no doubt have pretty good gut instinct. And, if faced with only two targets to choose from instead of a whole list, they'd usually make the right choice. So, if you force them to make choices of one target out of each possible pair, then calculate the most important targets from that set of "votes", the final result is pretty reliable. Yes, the method still has weaknesses - in any method, if those following the process are obsessed with a single issue, that obsession will dominate the results. But, by reducing things to a set of - mostly - easy choices, then calculating relative merits based on those choices, it does smooth out a lot of errors introduced by more complex systems.-raybeere (June 17, 2010, 01:29 PM)
3. Then, I use a special formula to calculate the urgency of tasks (processed in IQ (http://www.infoqube.biz/Home)) depending on their :
- duedates
- Planned Start and End date
- % Done
- time needed to complete them
- numeric priority (1-9)
Of course the formula takes into account whether the task-project is late or not, etc.-Armando (June 13, 2010, 12:47 PM)
Could you provide some examples as to what specific labels and character string you had that gave the feature a much needed place in your priority system?Well, the example would be anything you could imagine, I suppose.
Descriptions like these often make sense until I try imagining what specific string I would use.
Good work, bad work, great work
-analysis of goalsThis was the parent category that would be assigned by default to any record that related to an analysis of my own life goals, according to the mutually exclusive child sub-categories - which would have records assigned deliberately by me, as the user.
-superannuationThis was the parent category that would be assigned by default to any record that related to an analysis of the subject of superannuation, according to the mutually exclusive child sub-categories - which would have records assigned deliberately by me, as the user.