Re: For a todo list manager truly outliner-based

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 2738

Posted by sub
2005-02-15 05:41:21

[Stephen D.: They each *tend* to give the result that the absolute priority of the Project determines the priority of the subtasks.]

Indeed it does; in Project Management, effectiveness (getting the right things done) is more significant than efficiency (doing a lot of things). Often, reaching our goals will require dumping certain “projects” altogether.

Stephen R. Covey made a fortune with The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, based on principles like that. Habit 3, “Put First Things First”, is perhaps his most significant contribution to Time Management, so a book with that title followed. The grid he suggests for determining task priority has two scales: Urgency and Importance.

So a task can be:

>Both Urgent and Important (i.e. crisis situation)

> Important but Not Urgent (i.e. long term planning)

> Urgent but Not Important (i.e. daily routine)

> Neither Urgent Nor Important (i.e. time waster)

Covey’s research showed that most busy-busy-busy people are usually doing the Urgent stuff, regardless of their importance. Effective people, on the other hand, only deal with the Important tasks.

So Habit 1, “Be Proactive” and Habit 2, “Begin with the End in Mind” are critical. It is the importance of the Project’s End that will determine the importance of the Project’s Tasks, never the other way around.

alx

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