A few months ago I sketched an approach to task prioritization based on a hierarchical model. Each task was to be evaluated only with respect to its importance for its immediate parent, except the root project that was evaluated in comparison to other root projects. This manner of focusing the hierarchy was suggested to me by analogy with the workings of the maverick outliner BrainStorm and by some very elementary decision theory.

As per an update on this quest, there is one program that actually computes priorities this way, Life Balance (http://www.llamagraphics.com To me some undesirable facets of this program are tha a) the ultimate algorithm is secret; b) the program makes adjustments to this result based on ad hoc adjustments to which the user is blind.

The approach it turns out has a following, which seems also to share my reservations about Life Balance, and this group has congregated around the program MyLifeOrganized (http://www.mylifeorganized.com Some members of the present forum might be interested in looking at that discussion.

Stephen R. Diamond