Discussion Forum > SuperMemo for scheduling
Similar ideas as in http://www.timeful.com/ , as far as I understand ...
October 19, 2014 at 18:33 |
nick61
nick61
It sounds very like Above & Beyond http://www.1soft.com/ which has been going for ages.
There are several problems with this sort of scheduling software. The two main ones are:
a. They are very prone to "priority creep" as Initial success with the program leads to trying to pack more and more into it.
b. There comes a time when the program says to do one thing, and you can absolutely not bring yourself to do it. Once you start "disobeying" the schedule, it becomes increasing harder to work it.
There are several problems with this sort of scheduling software. The two main ones are:
a. They are very prone to "priority creep" as Initial success with the program leads to trying to pack more and more into it.
b. There comes a time when the program says to do one thing, and you can absolutely not bring yourself to do it. Once you start "disobeying" the schedule, it becomes increasing harder to work it.
October 22, 2014 at 23:59 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
SuperMemo Plan is a pretty simple program. There isn't really a secret algorithm -- all it does is recalculate the schedule in proportion to your original time allocations if your schedule gets knocked out of whack.
For some reason it really worked well for me, and was great for working on a long project over a number of months at 30-60 minutes per day. The program really isn't that much different than just writing out a schedule on paper, except that it is very easy to click and drag tasks and move them around, depending on your mood/energy etc.
If I make a prioritized to-do list with 6 items, work the list in order, and the 6th item is somewhat unpleasant, it is tempting to just call it a day after the first 5 items. But with SuperMemo I found that I would click and drag the most unpleasant tasks to the early part of the day, and I didn't mind doing those tasks because I knew I had set aside enough time later in the day for the things I was looking forward to doing. Or if my energy level was low I would drag "reading" (or something relaxing) up to the next task and do that for an hour.
I came across a somewhat similar approach in a book called "Time Management For System Administrators" by Thomas Limoncelli. His "cycle method" is loosely based on A/B/C priorities, but he also marks down the number of minutes he wants to work on each task. The main idea is to list out what you want to do, but to ensure that you have enough time to actually do it. Anything that can't be completed in the day is carried over to the next day's schedule. He describes it here (particularly episode 11): http://www.tomontime.com/
The difficulty I had with this approach, and with to-do lists in general, is that it is still possible to call it a day once you encounter a lower-priority, difficult task. SuperMemo somehow gets around this because (a) you can get the low-priority, hard stuff out of the way early (with the comfort of knowing you have enough time later in the day for the more important things), and (b) you have to stick with the schedule all day otherwise it falls apart. You can't really call it a day early because you don't feel like cleaning the bathroom at 10pm. But if you cleaned the bathroom at 10am, and the most pleasant task of the day was moved to 10pm, then you are much more likely to stick with the entire plan for the day.
Anyway, I'm not trying to sell the program -- more interested in discussing the general idea of laying out a plan for the day. Specifying how much time you want to spend on different tasks seems like a good way of increasing the likelihood that you will meet all of your goals for the day.
For some reason it really worked well for me, and was great for working on a long project over a number of months at 30-60 minutes per day. The program really isn't that much different than just writing out a schedule on paper, except that it is very easy to click and drag tasks and move them around, depending on your mood/energy etc.
If I make a prioritized to-do list with 6 items, work the list in order, and the 6th item is somewhat unpleasant, it is tempting to just call it a day after the first 5 items. But with SuperMemo I found that I would click and drag the most unpleasant tasks to the early part of the day, and I didn't mind doing those tasks because I knew I had set aside enough time later in the day for the things I was looking forward to doing. Or if my energy level was low I would drag "reading" (or something relaxing) up to the next task and do that for an hour.
I came across a somewhat similar approach in a book called "Time Management For System Administrators" by Thomas Limoncelli. His "cycle method" is loosely based on A/B/C priorities, but he also marks down the number of minutes he wants to work on each task. The main idea is to list out what you want to do, but to ensure that you have enough time to actually do it. Anything that can't be completed in the day is carried over to the next day's schedule. He describes it here (particularly episode 11): http://www.tomontime.com/
The difficulty I had with this approach, and with to-do lists in general, is that it is still possible to call it a day once you encounter a lower-priority, difficult task. SuperMemo somehow gets around this because (a) you can get the low-priority, hard stuff out of the way early (with the comfort of knowing you have enough time later in the day for the more important things), and (b) you have to stick with the schedule all day otherwise it falls apart. You can't really call it a day early because you don't feel like cleaning the bathroom at 10pm. But if you cleaned the bathroom at 10am, and the most pleasant task of the day was moved to 10pm, then you are much more likely to stick with the entire plan for the day.
Anyway, I'm not trying to sell the program -- more interested in discussing the general idea of laying out a plan for the day. Specifying how much time you want to spend on different tasks seems like a good way of increasing the likelihood that you will meet all of your goals for the day.
October 24, 2014 at 18:19 |
Simon
Simon
I usually feel relieved when I list estimated times. It's a reality check, and often a large number of tasks get chopped immediately. Sometimes discouraged, when I see how few things I can reasonably expect to accomplish. Sometimes optimistic, when I see I really can fit it all in, at least for today. Simply making the plan is useful, whether or not I follow it. Doing things not on the plan become more of a conscious choice. "This, or what I'd planned?"
October 31, 2014 at 14:06 |
Cricket
Cricket
SuperMemo is a flashcard program, which I used to study for an exam 6 or 7 years ago. The program has a sub-menu called "Plan" which is described here: http://www.supermemo.com/help/plan.htm
I found it was a really effective way of organizing the day, particularly plugging away at a task repeatedly over a few days. Basically you start entering tasks and the amount of time you want to work on them until all of your available time has been allocated. It automatically makes the schedule for the day based on the time for each tasks. It has a few really nice features that make it much more flexible than a typical schedule:
First, if you allocate 60 minutes for a task and it ends up taking 80 minutes, the program automatically recalculates the schedule for the rest of the day. For example, if it is 9pm and I have allocated 60 minutes to tasks A, B and C, with the day ending at midnight, then the schedule will indicate I do task A at 9pm, task B at 10pm and task C at 11pm. But if task A ends up taking 80 minutes, then the program knows I only have 180-80 = 100 minutes left in the day, compared with the original 120, so it scales down the time for tasks B and C (100/120 * 60 = 50 mins each) and recalculates the schedule: task B at 10:20pm, task C at 11:10pm. So rather than getting perturbed because the original schedule was ruined, you can continue to motor along with a slightly modified schedule.
Second, it is very easy to move tasks around on the fly -- just click and drag to a new slot, and the schedule is instantly recalculated. In the example above, if I started task B at 10:20pm and became bored after 20 minutes, I could split the task and slide the remaining 30 minutes to the slot after task C. Then my schedule would be: task B at 10:20, task C at 10:40, task B at 11:30. It also lets you insert new tasks, so if you are interrupted, you can split a task in half, insert the interruption, and then slide the second half of the split task to another appropriate time, and everything for the rest of the day is slightly compressed based on the length of the interruption.
You can also force a task to start at a given time no matter what, or force a task to stay at its original allocated time. The program also uses keyboard shortcuts so all of these adjustments become quick and intuitive.
Anyway, I had very good experiences with the program. One problem is that SuperMemo is a paid program, although I noticed on the website that he has freeware versions available. I'm sorry to dangle something that involves pulling out the credit card. The main point of the post is to describe the general philosophy of SuperMemo Plan, and to ask if anyone has used a similar program or technique? Seems like it could be implemented in Excel, but I have never been able to come up with a clean, usable version.