Task Selection

To select the next task, pick either the shortest or the most-procrastinated task.

Two meanings of “prioritize”:

• Weak prioritization: Sort tasks by some criterion to establish an order. Everyone should do this.
• Strong prioritization: Sort specifically by importance. A terrible job scheduling algorithm.

If you have important task A (takes a long time) and less important task B (takes 5 minutes), do B first. Doing so unblocks B’s successor tasks — e.g., the other person can read your email and reply while you work on A.

The pathological version: you only action quick wins and big tasks get postponed perpetually.

Algorithm

Do the shortest task first, with two exceptions:

1. Stalled tasks get a priority bump. Created weeks ago or postponed many days in a row → do it now.
2. Content-dependence. If working on a particular project, focus on tasks from that project rather than the global list.