Task Management Techniques That Didn't Work for Me

Time and task management skills are extremely important to have. Having these skills makes it so much easier to get stuff done throughout the day. Over time, various strategies have appeared to make managing time and tasks easier. Some of these work better than others, it all depends on the person. So I wanted to discuss some time and task management techniques that didn't quite work out for me.

By the way, just because a technique doesn't work for me doesn't mean it will work for you.

Daily 3

The point of this is instead of having a long to-do list with a bunch of things that you want to do each day, you come up with 3 large tasks you would like to complete. This makes it so you pick things that you want to do and actually accomplish them, instead of having a long backlog of goals and tasks you need to complete.

This actually worked great... for the first week. After that, I realized that I quit coming up with things I wanted to complete at the start of the day, but instead would go through my list as usual, and pick 3 random things after I already completed them. This didn't have me intentionally coming up with goals, but instead picking things that were "important" after I had already completed them, making the emphasis entirely useless.

Additionally, I faced the problem of not knowing what to do if I didn't accomplish a daily goal. Would I treat it like any other task and just schedule it for the next day instead? If I complete a late daily task later, should it still count for the daily tasks I completed on that day, because I technically missed a goal. What's even important enough to become a daily task in the first place?

I feel if I successfully used this system, I would've gotten a lot more benefit out of it. But sadly, it just didn't work for me. I would love to try properly exploring this system again in the future but change it up. For example, forcing myself to come up with the 3 daily goals before a certain time.

Pomodoro Timer

The pomodoro technique works by having a timer set with 2 periods, a work period and a break period. Human attention spans only last for so long, and so giving a short break can provide motivation to continue working on something. An example of how this may work is 3 repetitions of 30 minutes of work, 10 minutes of a break.

The issue is that I'm on the autism spectrum, so this just doesn't work for me, which sucks because it would be awesome if it did. I can work fine for the 30 minutes, but the thing is once I start working on something I need to be locked into it. I can't just come back to something after doing something else. So taking a break ends up completely throwing me out of work mode, and when I have to return to working, I end up just hesitating and getting little done, just pacing around.

Additionally, what you do during that break can impact how you feel. For example, if I were to play a few rounds of Splatoon during the break period, losing a match (especially the final) could demotivate me when I have to continue working. And if I was instead to go on social media, I could just get lost in social media due to the addictive nature of it. And I have a hard time returning to things like videos, if I start something I'm going to want to finish it or never return to it (unless it has obvious milestones such as chapters).

Additionally, I just don't follow the rules of the timer. I continue popping into Discord or quickly sending off a Tweet for 30 seconds before returning to what I'm doing. I know software to actually enforce the pomodoro technique exists, but it usually costs money as well as the time to set it up.

Excessive Time Blocking

Time blocking itself is actually a really useful technique. It involves setting aside time to work on something, choosing a start time and an end time. This is great because it creates an actual time to work on something as well as a deadline, which can motivate you to work during that period. It works great and I need to try it more.

Most people will only time block a few things each day. However, some people love time blocking so much they start to time block every small thing in their life. This can work great for things such as routine building. I don't think anybody can benefit from it though. This might work if you have a 9-5 job, but as someone in college with a part time job, it just won't work. I don't have the same schedule every day, and my free time isn't guaranteed during each part of the week.

Having everything in your day already scheduled gives you little to no flexibility. If you're late to something, you have to reschedule the rest of your entire day. Same thing if something in your schedule suddenly has to change. It sounds like a pain to maintain.

Additionally, I just don't see the point of doing this for your entire day, except for trying to build a routine. What benefits do you get from setting aside time to wake up, get dressed, eat, and get ready? All these tasks come one after another, you can't really leave the house until you complete them. I can't imagine people even follow these? Do you wait until exactly 7:30 am to poop every morning? Did you spend so much time brushing your teeth in the past you need a reminder telling you to stop?

If you're trying to get out of depression by having a routine, I can see how it's helpful. But for everyone else, its just fluff to make your calendar look busy and make you feel productive.

Conclusion

If any of these work fine for you, that's great! Keep on using them, I'm not going to judge you for using something functional. Everyone works differently, and these things just didn't end up working for me.

The thing is that I know most of these could be useful if applied correctly, its just applying them correctly is the hard part.