Over at Gameful they had another challenge called Operation : End Boredom

The task : “Pick a job—even your OWN job!—and fix the most boring part.”

I spent some time thinking about how to do this, and I came up with what I think is a fun way to fix the most boring parts not just of my job, but of just about anyone’s job.

Submitted for your approval : Task Fight

PRELUDE

I am a software engineer by trade. I enjoy solving problems in code, especially the really complicated ones. But in reality, for every interesting code problem to be solved, there is a lot of really boring work to be done : bug fixing, tps reports, testing, meetings, code reviews, rewriting old code to work with new code, server upgrades, watching progress meters fill up, boring, boring, boring! For every engaging, fun or interesting task on my task list, there are several tasks that all need to be done, but are just really boring. Occasionally all those boring things float to the top of the priority stack. When that happens, it can be hard to stay engaged.

This lead to the creation of something I call Task Fight.

THE SPEED RUN

Players Make Task Lists
Players Assign Points To Tasks
Players Assign More Points To Boring And/Or Hard Tasks
Players Complete Tasks To Earn Points
Players Spend Points For Game Collateral
Players Play A Game With Their Collateral
The Winner Gets A Prize

OVERVIEW

Task Fight works in two stages. In STAGE ONE, you find one or more people with a list of tasks to accomplish. You all agree on a specific time window for a showdown, assign point values to your tasks, and then you get as much done in your time window as you can. At the end of the time window, everyone totals up their points. Then you move to STAGE TWO.

STAGE TWO involves playing a game where you turn those points into game collateral. If you want to play a war game, you spend your points to buy units. If you want to play poker, you turn your points into chips. In the playtest, for the sake of simplicity, points turned in to dice for a roll-off. Whoever wins this game, wins the Task Fight and an agreed-on prize.

I’m writing this up from the perspective of a software engineer, but Task Fight can easily be played by any group of people who have some things they need to get done. Some aspects of a software development cycle, in particular agile development, translate especially well to Task Fight.

The first thing you need is some players. I played this game solo, and later I playtested it with one other person, but it would work well with a small group, maybe up to a dozen or so people. It can be helpful to have an impartial referee, like a manager, to resolve any disputes.

STAGE ONE

Step 1 – Agree on a time window. If you want to burn through some tasks, you can do this over the course of just a few hours. But it will play better if you pick a larger window – a week, a month, a full development cycle, etc.

Step 2 – The players sit down together and list out the tasks, assigning point values bases on player consensus of how long the task will take. Assign each task 1 point per 15 minutes the task is estimated to take.

Example 1 : Complete Review Of Training Materials – 1 hour = 4 points;
Example 2 : Implement Poorly Documented API – 2 hours = 8 points;

Step 3 – Based off player consensus, modify the point values for each task as follows : If the task is considered BORING, multiply the point value by 1.5 (round up) ; If the task is considered HARD, multiply the point value by 1.5 (round up); If the task is considered both HARD and BORING, multiply the point value by 3; If the task is interesting, compelling, or at least neither HARD nor BORING, do not modify the point value. (Rational : The things we like doing are their own reward).

Example 1 : Complete Review Of Training Materials – 1 hour = 4 points; BORING = 6 points total;
Example 2 : Implement Poorly Documented API – 2 hours = 8 points; HARD and BORING = 24 points total;

Step 4 – The players divide up the tasks. Doing this after point assignment means that point values should get distributed somewhat evenly, and that no one person gets all the boring and hard work. Then the time window opens and players go complete the tasks. As each player completes their task, they mark them off the list and claim the points.

CAVEATS

Peer review during task point assignment should keep people honest, but there is a lot of honor system in place.

If a task is poorly estimated, the referee may agree to change the point value. The other players should at least know when this happens, but they ideally they would agree, especially since the estimates were peer reviewed.

At the referee’s discretion, if a player completes a task poorly, that player may be penalized. This should only be used in cases where it seems clear the player rushed a task through just to get the points.

If high-priority tasks present themselves during the time window, they are given point values and exchanged for something else of equal value on the task list.

There is no bonus for finishing early, and additional tasks taken on due to finishing early may not be scored.

The manager should be permitted to award a finite number of bonus points to reward individual feats (epic wins, significant breakthroughs, going above and beyond, etc).

STAGE TWO

When the time window closes, the players get together to celebrate – something with food and drink. Point totals are tallied, and any player who completed their entire task list within the time window receives a 10% bonus to their point total (round up). The points are then translated into game collateral for the game to be played. As this game will vary from team to team, implementation details of the game can vary widely. The celebration is part team-building exercise (playing together, sharing food), part reward for good performers, and part stage setting for the next round of Task Fight. Specifically, the following things should be determined:

1. The player who acquired the fewest points chooses the game to be played at the end of the next Task Fight;
2. The player who acquired the most points chooses what kind of food to be served at the next celebration;
3. The player who wins the game played at the celebration receives a traveling trophy that may confer certain benefits (Example : Engraved coffee mug good for free coffee in the cafe);

GAME EXAMPLES

Here are a few ways you could take point values and use them with different kinds of games in this context:

• Poker – translate the point values into chip counts, and have a poker night;
• Risk – translate the point values into individual units in Risk, modify the base rules accordingly, and try to conquer the world;
• Miniatures – if your team likes to play miniatures games where you build an army with a certain point value, you could translate points into units;
• Dice – In the playtest, we had a very small window. Each point became a single d6. We rolled all our d6, totaled up the roll, highest total won;
• Checkers – If you’re playing with just one other person, and a short window, translate points into checkers and play a game with uneven sides;
• Dance Dance Revolution – Translate points into credits and have a dance-off;
• Paintball – Turn points into paint rounds and go shoot it out (If you do this, hire me to work for you);
• Dodge Ball – For every X points, your team gets a ball;
• Solitaire – Playing solo? Pick a unique flavor of solitaire, and use points to buy cards (I did this in my solo run).

PLAYTESTS

I tried a solo run first, using points to buy cards for a game of Hand Solitaire. I found myself really staying on track for getting my tasks done, but I didn’t think playing solo was much of a playtest. So I decided to find another player.

I took to Twitter to find someone with a lot of things to get done, for a short playtest. I limited the playtest to one other player due to time constraints. We agreed to play the game over a four hour time window, relying heavily on the honor system for assigning points to our tasks.

Once the Task Fight started, I noticed that I was really pushing hard to get things done that I had been putting off for some time. Specifically, I intentionally listed one task that involved tagging some images in a particular way, and I had been putting that task off for a long time – tagging images is BORING. I powered through it during our Task Fight, because I wanted the points. I found myself being more focused on what I needed to get done, as did the other player.

Playtester comment : “Instead of popping open Reddit for 15 minutes when I got in, I said ‘I WANT POINTS’ and put on headphones to focus.”

As the time window progressed, it became clear to me that I had taken on too many tasks. Meanwhile, the other player was dealing with meetings that kept coming up and getting in the way. At the end, I had completed about 12 points worth of tasks (I missed another four points by 10 minutes), and the other player reported in with 8 points (she got killed by meetings). We opted to resolve everything with a single die roll : 8d6 vs 12d6, sum the rolls, winner takes all. Final result : 27 to 43 for me. All hail my mighty army of dice!

Here’s a shot of my checklist – really the only piece of playtesting evidence I can show.

OBSERVATIONS

Playing Task Fight in such a small window has good value. If you are trying to sprint through a short to-do list, it turns into a sort of Word War or Word Sprint like you see in NaNoWriMo. But the small windows can really be affected by outside forces. You could have mini-Task Fights in the context of a Task Fight going on over a larger time window. I’ve come to think of these mini-Task Fights as Duels.

Playing Task Fight in a large window with a larger team would pay off in a lot of ways. By assigning points to tasks, you at least become aware of who is getting the boring work, and you can respond by redistributing the boring work across the team. Task sizing and estimation skills will improve as a result of playing the game. Natural competitiveness will keep players motivated to perform. Ending with a celebration is a great way to help build spirit on the team. I’ve come to think of these longer time windows as Showdowns.

SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

“How will your game create an ever-challenging role?” The players will challenge each other in terms of productivity as they compete for points and task completion, but I don’t think that’s the big win. By making the boring tasks more desirable in terms of point values, the boring work will naturally be spread around the team more. As players get rid of the boring work, they find that the only work left is either challenging (HARD) or compelling (at the very least, not BORING). That’s a pretty good place to be.

“Even with your game, how quickly would the job get boring again, and why?” This is going to really vary from situation to situation but here is something I do think I can say : If you always play the same game in STAGE TWO, this game would get boring in about three months. Players will get tired of playing the same game at the end, especially in a team setting where preferences can vary by several degrees. But if you are always playing a different game in STAGE TWO, then I believe Task Fight could stay interesting for a long time – a year, maybe even two. Much longer, if your team embraces the game and really invests in the traveling trophy and the creativity involved with picking games and structuring the celebration. Alternately, you could break out Task Fight once per quarter or so, which would allow you to really customize each Showdown to the tasks at hand.

(Ed Note : I published this before it was done, so the below is all new since it went out)

This is already a bit long, but I want to briefly express the game using a couple different frameworks.

First up, Game Frame

Activity – We want players to get their boring tasks out of the way so they can work on things that are more enjoyable.
Profile – Achievement, Freedom, Control, Social Interest. Lack of Volition may be a symptom.
Objectives – Short term goals : Successful Task Completion. Long term goal : Maximum point values for use as Game Collateral.
Skills – Task Sizing, Estimation, Time Management
Resistance – Time Limits, Competition with other players, (in STAGE TWO, Chance)
Resources – Tasks, Game Collateral
Actions – Completion of Tasks and Task Prioritization
Feedback – Point Accumulation, Achievement Recognition
Black Box – Point Metrics, Referee, Peer Review
Outcomes – Task Completion, Skill Improvement and Team Building

Next, in PERMA

Positive Emotion – by getting the boring work out of the way, players will find themselves more frequently working on things they actually enjoy, leading to a more positive outlook on their job;
Relationships – competition is friendly in nature, and the exercise builds to a celebration of accomplishments made by all players. This celebration happens in the context of playing games together;
Meaning – by using the points allocations to spread the boring work around the team, players will recognize that they are collectively sharing the burden of the boring work, and sharing the goal of getting it out of the way so they can work on more interesting things;
Accomplishment – few things feel better than crossing off the last item on your To Do list. Celebrating that event together as a team will strengthen the inherent reward and sense of accomplishment.

I’m overdue for a round of updates. Life happened somewhere in there, and I’m well off the wagon for 52 Weeks of Done. But there’s something really awesome I wanted to share with you.

After the completion of the first run of I Am Your Champion, I wrote up the game and submitted it over at Gameful.org as an entry in their Gameful Challenge #1

Lo and behold, it won recognition. I Am Your Champion was named Runner Up in the challenge, and was listed as Game Of The Week.

That was all really very exciting to me. I was proud of how the game came out, warts and all. I’ve been working (passively) on a second revision, and hope to see it go to some interesting places.

Thanks again to everyone who played. Without players, games are just ideas in the aether.

Champions,

We’ve come a long way, and we’ve gotten a lot of good ideas out there in terms of helping raise both awareness for our cause, and raising some coin for them too.

This last Round challenges you to take what you’re doing one step further.

The Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25 an hour. Without actual volunteers doing work on behalf of charities, that great $20 donation you just raised goes to pay someone for a couple hours of their time instead of going into the fund the charity uses to do their good works. If you’ve got marketable skills, your time could end up being much more valuable to them than that $20. But sometimes, no matter how flush the charity is with immediate cash, they just need some people to move boxes or stuff envelopes. You can do that.

Task 1 : Commit Your Time – Commit to giving your charity some of your time in the next year. Even if you can only commit a couple hours of your time on one Saturday in November, commit to yourself that you will give them this time.

Task 2 : Contact Your Charity – If your charity (or a closely related charity) has a local office, this may be easier. Go visit them in person if possible, call if you can, email if there’s no other way to get in contact with them. Tell them you want to volunteer some time, and ask them what opportunities they have that you can help with. Even if your charity is geographically remote, they may have something you can do for them in your area, or on a computer.

Task 3 : Tell Your Story – This has been an exciting experience for me, and I hope it has been for you. Take some time to reflect on the experience, and then share your thoughts, good or bad, with me and / or the rest of the world. Wrap up the experience in a blog post, or shoot me a with your thoughts.

Commit Your Time, Contact Your Charity, Tell Your Story. Complete these three tasks, and you will have completed Round 5.

Drills

1 – Take This Short Survey to give me feedback about your experience playing I Am Your Champion so far (You need not have finished all 5 rounds to take the survey).

2 – Instead of committing to going in to volunteer for half a day later this year, commit to a regular volunteering gig – quarterly, monthly, or even weekly.

3 – Keep Playing The Game. There’s no reason you have to stop.

Questions, Comments, Stories below.

#iayc

Champions,

In Round 3, we all spent some time looking for ways to help each other out, by Throwing In or Throwing Down with our fellow Champions. It was great seeing fellow Champions joining together, exchanging support, and seizing hold of the idea that we are not Competitors – that we can help raise our collective efforts.

The first Task in Round 3 was to Determine Your Limits – we all have them. I’m sure if you’re playing, you’d love to be able to Thrown Down funds and Throw In effort without limit. But it’s just not practical. We can’t do it all. And there’s so much out there we’d like to support more directly.

Round 4 focuses on finding ways to drum up support for all of our causes by looking for ways that our Challenges can play off of each other. We may not be able to put forth unlimited effort or money, but I’m sure we can come up with some ideas that other people will find compelling. I have one right now that I will propose after the Drills, to demonstrate what I mean.

Task 1 : Identify Opportunities – If you completed the first Drill in Round 3, you’ll have a handy list of Champions and their Challenges. Look through the various Challenges and find places that two Challenges (including your own) could compliment each other in interesting ways.

Task 2 : Create A Link – Propose At Least 1 Supreme Challenge that take two or more challenges and combines them to make something new. If possible, propose the Supreme Challenge by commenting in the blog posts for the original Challenges.

Task 3 : Rally The Troops – You’ve just come up with a cool new thing that wasn’t there before. Show the opportunity to other people. Talk to your co-workers. You’ve probably been working your followers and friends pretty hard already for the past couple rounds. Reach out to new audiences, people you might not normally have considered. Discuss your Supreme Challenge with 3 New People. Even strangers on the street.

Identify Opportunities, Create A Link, Rally The Troops. Complete these three Tasks, and you will have completed Round 4.

Drills

1 – Comment below with 3 solid ideas that Champions can use for Rewards and Challenges, regardless of their situation. A few Champions are having difficulty coming up with a way to offer a Reward.

2 – Print up a flier to promote your Challenges, and post it on a public bulletin board. Post a picture of it.

3 – Propose two more Supreme Challenges.

My First Supreme Challenge

@twoscooters offered, among other things, 250 words of English to Esperanto Translation in exchange for a $20 donation to Autism Women’s Network.

@a1mrson offered, among other things, to cover the song of your choice and put it on youtube in exchange for a $10 donation to Reading Is Fundamental.

My Supreme Challenge is for @twoscooters to translate King Of The Road from English to Esperanto, and for @a1mrson to sing it and put it on youtube, in exchange for a $20 donation to Autism Women’s Network and a $10 donation to Reading is Fundamental.

Who WOULDN’T donation $30 for that?

Questions, Comments, Etc below.

#iayc

Edit : After some feedback and reflection, I’ve modified Task 2 and added Drill 3, to split up the creation of the 3 Supreme Tasks a bit.

As my Challenge for I Am Your Champion, I have created a Giving Page over at Donors Choose. I want to raise $500 for schools in need of math and science supplies.

If you collectively donate $500 to this giving page by 10/6/2011, I will take two of my Shambles scenarios (A Cabin In The Woods and The Putrescent Seven), rewrite them to be system-agnostic, and release them using the Creative Commons Attribution license, which allows commercial reuse.

I feel strongly about the next generation performing well in Math and Science, and to the end that Donors Choose can put learning supplies in the hands of children, I want to support them.

Champions,

Some of you may fee like you are behind at this point. These rounds are coming fast and furious and that might seem a little overwhelming. I will announce the final round of I Am Your Champion on Friday, but anyone who completes all five rounds will get the pass I described earlier – even if it takes you a few days, a few weeks, or even a few months to wrap everything up! You don’t have to collect funds, or issue rewards, by Friday. I have tried to structure the tasks such that they can be completed in five days – most of them consist of committing to do things, not executing those things all this week.

With that in mind, let’s move on to the Round 3 Tasks.

We are Champions, not Competitors. We can more successfully serve our causes by remembering that simple fact. To that end, Round 3 focuses on Champions lending assistance to each other.

Task 1 : Determine Your Limits – If you are in a position to lend financial assistance to the cause of another Champion, determine how much assistance you can reasonably give. If you are not in a position to lend financial assistance, but can instead lend your time, determine how much time you can reasonably spend assisting other Champions.

Task 2 : Meet A Challenge – There are two ways you can Meet A Challenge of another Champion.

• Throw Down – When you Throw Down, you’re accepting a Challenge. You make or commit to make a donation to their Cause, according to the terms of their Challenge.
• Thrown In – If you cannot Throw Down, or if you want to do something a little different, then you can Throw In. When you Throw In, you offer your own reward in exchange for someone else accepting the challenge on your behalf. For example, if my challenge is “I will draw a Dungeon if you make a $20 dollar donation to Donors Choose,” you can Throw In by saying “If anyone accepts that challenge on my behalf, I will volunteer two hours at the Alameda Food Bank.” Throwing in is a powerful way for Champions join forces to help each other with multiple causes at the same time.

Task 3 : Go On Record – By going on record to the world that you’ve met the Challenge of another Champion, you send some potent messages. It tells your fellow Champions, as well as all of your collective supporters, that you understand that Champions are not Competitors. Going on record also tells people that you’re willing to play both sides of this game. You also help your fellow Champions get the word out about their own Challenge – something that will help them succeed.

Determine Your Limits, Meet A Challenge, Go On Record. Complete these three Tasks, and you will have completed Round 3.

Drills

1 – Compile your own list of Champions and their Challenges. You can roll it up in a blog post, or just keep it handy for your own reference.

2 – Submit your own ideas for a Drill that would be useful to other Champions.

Questions, Comments, etc below.

#iayc

(Apologies, this is a little late)

Welcome, Champions. And thank you for what you’re about to do. You’ve selected your cause, and you’ve joined the game. Let’s jump in to Round 2 tasks and see if we can’t make something happen.

When looking at traditional charity fundraiser activities, they generally follow a very specific structure : the charity holds a large event to gather together a bunch of people in one place to perform a certain task. Frequently, these are physical challenges – walk-a-thons, biking events, jumping rope, climbing stairs, but there are exceptions certainly (bake sales, telethons, Desert Bus). But their one unifying feature is they say “Come do this activity and help us raise funds.”

I Am Your Champion turns this statement around. Instead, you will say “I will perform this activity, if you give my charity a donation.”

What kind of activity? It’s entirely up to you. But let me throw out some examples.

“I will run a custom encounter for your gaming group, if you give $20 donation to my charity.”

“I will draw a dungeon map and release it Creative Commons, if you give my charity $100.”

“I will record an acoustic version of King Of The Road, and put it up for everyone to hear, if you give my charity $50.”

“I will knit a scarf and donate it to my local homeless shelter, in exchange for a $30 donation to my charity.”

“I will pass out fliers promoting your event, in exchange for a $10 donation to my charity.”

“I will go volunteer at your charity for 4 hours, in exchange for a $40 donation to my charity.”

By taking this approach to fundraising, Champions can put their best talents to work for their charities. Champions are not bound by the constraints put on them in large events, and nor are they bound by financial or time constraints. Champions can set their own boundaries and limits, and work toward them.

Task 1 : Set Your Goal – Spend some time thinking about how much money you would like help raise for your charity. Don’t limit yourself or get caught up in feelings of “Too Little” or “Too Much”

Task 2 – Design A Reward – Determine what you are going to offer the world in exchange for their donation to your cause. It could be one thing, it could be twenty things. The important thing is, it should be something new. Don’t offer copies of work you have already done. This is an opportunity for an act of creation. Take advantage of that. Size the reward or rewards appropriate to your goal.

Task 3 – Issue A Challenge – Once you have a goal, and a reward, it’s time to step out on the field and issue your challenge to the crowd. You are the Champion of your cause, and you have something to offer the world should someone choose to support your cause. Let people know what you’re doing, via blog post, personal conversations, fliers or skywriting. Make your cause, terms and reward clear, and dare people to take you up on it.

Set Your Goal, Design A Reward, Issue A Challenge. Complete these three tasks, and you will have completed Round 2.

Drills

1 – Find other Champions who are having trouble designing a reward. Offer your creative assistance.

2 – Find a symbol to represent you as Champion.

3 – As other Champions issue their Challenges, help them spread the word.

Questions, comments and Challenges below.

#iayc

I Am Your Champion is a game that will challenge your existing ideas regarding charitable fundraising. I sincerely believe that if you complete all five rounds of this game, you will look at working with charities, and your ability to assist your favorite charities, in a whole new light.

We will play the game in five rounds. Each round will begin at 10:00 AM, starting today and going through Friday. Each round will consist of three Tasks you must complete to proceed to the next round, as well as additional Drills that are optional, but will have an effect I will describe in a moment. And you can join the game at any time – if you’re reading this Friday morning, you can still complete all five rounds (but you might need to hustle).

Any player who completes all five rounds will receive a special pass from me. Only people who finish this version of the game will get this pass. In addition to being a unique and interesting item in and of itself, this pass will entitle the bearer to certain benefits to be disclosed after the game has been completed. Each one will be unique, and if you complete some of those Drills I mentioned earlier, your pass will reflect that.

I’ll be using the hashtag #iayc to post my own updates related to I Am Your Champion – feel free to do the same.

Ready to begin?

Prelude

In I Am Your Champion you are taking on the role of a Champion for the charitable cause of your choice. You pick something that has meaning to you, and for this week you’re going to rally to that cause. You’ll be rewarded along the way, and if you see this to the end, you’ll be rewarded doubly.

Round One

In the first round, your tasks are pretty simple:

Task One : Choose Your Cause – This is a Thinking task, and a very personal thing. You need to decide what cause you’re going to rally around – whose Champion will you be? It can be a big, well known organization (EFF, ASPCA, Red Cross, etc), or a small local affair we won’t recognize (a local food bank, inner city program, or even a family in a rough patch). The important thing is, it’s a work of charity.

Task Two : Decide To Play – This task is an Act of decision making. Commit to playing the game in whatever form feels right to you. Maybe it’s entirely internal, maybe you actually say to yourself “Ok. I’m in.” The expression of the act isn’t important, what matters is the act of confirming to yourself that you’re playing – that you are, for this week, a Champion for your cause.

Task Three : Announce Yourself – To make your first move as a Champion, announce yourself. Tell someone you’re playing I Am Your Champion. Then explain to them what that means, and tell them what your cause is. If you comment below, it will be easier for us all to keep track of each other, but you don’t have to comment here to play the game. You can post it on Facebook, Twitter, your own blog, or you can just tell people like your parents, coworkers, classmates, fellow barflies, or strangers on the street. Champions charge into the fray. They don’t hide at the back. You’re about to do something great, for a good cause. You can be proud of that. And you may get some of your friends involved along the way.

Choose Your Cause, Decide To Play, Announce Yourself. Complete these three tasks, and you will have completed Round One.

Drills

1 – Join the conversation on Twitter

2 – Write a dedicated blog post announcing yourself as a Champion.

3 – Directly invite 5 people to become Champions.

Any questions? Want to Announce Yourself? Sound off below!

I’m breaking format on this kickoff post because this week is something special.

This week, I want us all to play a game.  The game is open to anyone who wants to participate, but I am especially keen to have playtesters who play or design games – your feedback will be unique.  We will be playing it on our blogs, on Twitter, on the phone, on the streets, and anywhere else the players take the game.

The game will be played in five turns. The first turn begins on Monday morning at 10:00 AM, PST.  At that time I will post a description of the game and the rules for the first turn right here on this blog.

This game is something of an experiment for me, the first run of what I hope will become a much bigger version of the game.  It should be fun and rewarding, but some of that will rest on you all as players. 

Any player who completes all five rounds will receive a special pass from me.  Only people who finish this version of the game will get this pass.  In addition to being a unique and interesting item in and of itself, this pass will entitle the bearer to certain benefits to be disclosed after the game.

Interested? Curious? Speculating?

Then I will see you tomorrow morning at 10:00

#iayc

I spent the week trying to find time to go through the stuff I want to get done for 52 Weeks of Done. That was the only thing on my plate this week.

It took a little doing to actually find time to go through the list, things being what they are, but I did get through it last night. All open tasks I have to complete this year now have been prioritized, with estimates and schedules. This was a really useful exercise for me already, and I haven’t even gone through the list to do the fun part of the sorting.

First thing I learned is that I’m trying to do too much. Yeah yeah, we all knew that. But when you actually go through the list and do this kind of estimating with it, you get a really good view of just how much you’re trying to do. And how you really can’t do it all.

Second, I assigned multiple criteria that basically correspond to “How important is it to me?”, “How much time will it take to do?”, “How quickly do I need it to be done?”, and “Do I think it goes at the top of the list or the bottom of the list?” When I correlated on these criteria, this mass of tasks that I want to get done this year coalesced into a very clear image of what is really important to me this year.

I knew this exercise was going to be useful to help me get organized, but I didn’t expect such a clear picture for the year to form like it did. It’s kind of exciting. And I highly recommend you try this if you haven’t done something like this before.