1. BEST WAY TO MANAGE YOUR TASk
A PROJECT OF
Workshop on time and workload management
Submittedto: submittedby:
Prof: Namrata chugh Sahil Jain
GGDSDCOLLEGE 3206
KHERI GURNA,BANUR BBA-5th
semester
2. Acknowledgement
I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my teacher (Prof. Namrata
chugh) as well as our Director (Dr. Baldev Sachdeva)who gave me the golden
opportunity to do this wonderful project on the topic (best way to manage your task),
which also helped me in doing a lot of Research and i came to know about so many
new things I am really thankful to them.
Secondly I would also like to thank my parents and friends who helped me a lot in
finalizing this project within the limited time frame.
SAHIL JAIN
Content
3. Contents………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….4
Task management………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..5
Why time and task management is important……………………………………………………………………..6
Task Hierarchy……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..7
Pen and paper task management…………………………………………………………………………………………8
Need……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………11
Excuses, excuses………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….12
Levels………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….13
Task life cycle………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………17
Activities supported to task………………………………………………………………………………………………….18
Best way to manage your task………………………………………………………………………………………………19
TIPS………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………27
BIBLOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..28
Introduction
4. Everyone has tasks to do and limited time to do them regardless of their role: employee,
student, homemaker … the only difference is the type of tasks and the route via which they
come in.
This is the first in a series of four blog posts looking at task and time management. In these
posts I describe my method of managing my work tasks – I have other roles also for which I use
a similar method.
This first post is an introduction to time and task management - why it's important and why we
often don't do it. The second post will look at the process I use to manage my tasks. The third
post tells you about my tips & tricks for beating procrastination and distraction. The final post
looks at various software tools that might help with this process.
There is no right or wrong way to manage your workload and other tasks that you need to do.
You have to find a way that works for you. Hopefully by sharing my current thoughts and
practices you can use them as a starting point for finding a strategy that helps you.
What is Task Management
5. Task management is as integral to the project management discipline as a ball to the
game of football. Without task management, there is no project management software.
Therefore task management is the primary foundation of project management. In other
words, there is no good project management software without a good task management
system as an integral part of it. Task management is the process of managing tasks
through the project’s life cycle. It includes gathering requirements, planning, status
tracking, testing and creating final reports when tasks are completed. Individuals use
task management to organize and accomplish personal goals for everyday chores.
Teams rely on task management to collaborate and achieve group goals together.
Tasks could have status, start date, due date, people who are assigned to them,
comments, tags and attached files. More advanced task management systems support
dependencies, recurrence, priority and complexity. The market is saturated with to-do
list and task managers of varying maturity and functionality. The hope of this tutorial is
to educate the reader about the attributes of good task management. We also aim to
clarify terms used by project management practitioners when task management is
discussed or planned.
Why time and task management is important
6. Poor task and time management leads to additional stress, and let’s face it: life is
stressful enough as it is. If we don’t adequately manage our workload, we become less
productive, struggle to meet deadlines and forget to do important tasks. Perhaps more
serious than this is the knock on effect: we end up always trying to “catch up” with
things, and we forget to make time for fun & relaxing activities which are essential for
our well-being or feel guilty for enjoying ourselves because we think we should be doing
more important things. Good task and time management, then, is not just about
increasing productivity but giving ourselves a better quality of life.
For me, it is important to have a method of managing my tasks and time which gives me
structure but also allows flexibility to work around unexpected obstacles (e.g. urgent
tasks cropping up, illness, something not working). It also needs to have built-in
techniques to keep me on task - by making me aware of when my concentration is poor
or I have otherwise lost focus - and to help me beat procrastination.
Task hierarchy
7. This is the most complex part of this guide. Most people have different ways of
organizing the different parts of their lives, but the one that I have seen the most
often and found the most useful is the division of life into:
Health
Wealth (including career)
Relationships (friends, family, significant other)
General Happiness (catchall for everything else)
It would therefore make sense for our tasks to fall into these categories too. Sure,
there will be the everyday mundane that doesn’t really sit inside that hierarchy.
Things like going to the bank, doing the laundry, doing the grocery shopping. For this
reason, I also recommend a general “Everyday” category for such things.
Now for some people this is too structured. In which case I would recommend:
Projects: personal projects you have that you want to complete, like redecorating
the living room, cleaning out the garage, or finishing a certain book.
Events: e.g., planning a dinner party, organizing a family trip out of town.
General Errands: same as the “Everyday” list above.
Things For Later: ideas that you want to revisit one day, just not at the moment.
Pen or paper task management
8. Pen and paper is the simplest form of task management, and the one that most
people use. The biggest problem with pen and paper is actually that most people
start to develop a great task management system, Then they stop using it or
maintaining it due to the busyness of their lives.
The benefits of paper are many. It is very simple – you don’t need any complicated
or expensive equipment, and it’s something you could easily teach to your
mom/dad/family or any non-technically-inclined friends.
That’s not to say there aren’t downsides compared to other task management
systems, the biggest probably being that you have to copy tasks over to the next day
every single day to maintain a functioning system.
With that out of the way, here’s what you’ll need:
Paper. Preferably in the form of a notebook (I recommend letter or A4 size).
Post-it notes.
At least 2 different colored pens – one for writing, one for highlighting.
Getting this system started is straightforward. Sit down, and take the time to write
down everything on your mind. Write down all the things you have to do, all the
random thoughts you have – everything. Grocery shopping for this week? Write it
down. Doctor’s appointment in 2 weeks? Write it down. Call Jean back about that
party next week? Write it down.
You should end up with a large list of unorganized thoughts and actions the first time
you do this. Now you need to sort. In general, there will be three types of items you
have listed: tasks, appointments and information.
You want to separate these out. Appointments will go in your schedule or calendar
(we have a great piece about that here). Information should technically go into your
personal wiki, but if we’re being simple here, transfer it to another notebook for the
time being. Tasks are what you want to focus on for now.
Taking this list of tasks, start ordering them – start at 1, and go through to x, where x
is the number of items on your list.
9. There’s no real need for categories with a paper system, it just tends to complicate
things. You may find that certain tasks group together well around events or projects,
and if they do you can list them that way.
Now that you have your initial list of tasks, it’s time to learn how to use the system
effectively. You’ll have two lists: an “immediate action” list, and an “everything else”
list.
At the start of every day, pick a new page in your workbook, put down today’s date,
and list down all the “immediate action” items on your task list. These are tasks that
are due today, or overdue, or will be completed in the next couple of days. Usually
about 5 items is right for most people. All the other tasks, should sit in a separate
notebook or in a page at the back of your notebook – we’ll come back to this second
list later.
Now as you start your day, look at task number one, and start doing it until it’s done.
Then onto task number two, and three and so on…
As you complete each task, tick it off or cross it out using a different colored pen.
You can also reorganize the order of tasks on-the-fly if necessary.
At the end of every day, transfer everything left over to the next day. Now is also the
time to take a look at that second “everything else” list, and see what needs to
brought into your “immediate action” list for the next day.
If you have random thoughts or ideas during the day, grab a post-it and write it
down. At the end of the day, the content of these post-its should either go into your
“immediate action” list or “everything else” list – the post-its themselves should go in
the bin.
11. Need of task management
Task management systems represent a method of making your business run more
efficiently, it allows you to stay up to date, on time and on budget for all of your project
and management requirements. Even small businesses benefit from a task
management system, and the system will grow in line with your business. Task
management allows you to spend less time managing what everyone else is doing and
spend more time doing valuable work for your own brand. It makes the day to day
running of your business much easier and keeps your employees on track and sane.
Knowing all that you know now, do you believe that you need a task management
system? It is truly your decision, every business is different and your own requirements
and processes will impact this decision.
12. Excuses, excuses.. why we don’t bother
We often make excuses as to why we don’t manage our workload effectively. Here are
a few I’ve used in the past (you might recognize some of them…):
“I work best under pressure.” – I told myself this because I had poor task
management practices and didn’t want to admit it. I did produce good work under
pressure of a looming deadline, but it was stressful and other things that needed doing
didn’t get done.
“I’m naturally disorganized and it works for me.” – I used this one to make myself
feel better. The reality is that yes, I am naturally disorganized, but it didn’t work for me:
not doing the things I needed to get done made me feel guilty and stressed.
“It takes too much time!” – The phrase time management is used a lot, and I used to
kid myself that I don’t have time for time management because I should actually be
doing things instead. The reality is that time passes regardless of what you do: you can’t
really manage time. But you can manage what you do in that time. This is one reason
why I prefer the phrase task management. One of my tasks is to make sure I’m using
my time effectively and keeping my workload under control … it’s a process that’s under
continual review.
13. Levels Of task management
There are three levels of task management s, each targeting different project
complexities and team sizes. I have grouped these task manages as beginners,
Intermediate and advance. For each, the required attributes and functionality is listed
and explained.
Beginners Task management system
When managing task for personal use or simple projects all the functionality provided by
advance task manages is not needed. Here we have listed the minimum functionality
needed to complete basic personal or simple projects.
Title: A task should have a title; this helps to state the reason for the task in one
simple sentence.
Description: Task description is used when the task title is not enough and more
information should be give to the person the task is assigned, to make things
clear.
Start date: When the task starts
Due date: When the task ends
Assigned to: Individual who is responsible for completing this task
That is all needed for a simple task manager to provide. Most to do list have this
level of functionality. Quite a lot could be accomplished even with is simple task
management system. An example if simple project management is Asana.
14. Intermediate task management system
For more advance projects when a few people work together, the task manger needs to
provide more functionality and features than listed above to be effective. In addition to
all features listed above, this type or task manager needs to provide the following:
Recurrence: In many projects a task is repeated daily, weekly or monthly. A
recurring task helps to simplify this by creating the task once and using it as
many times as needed.
File attachment: To support task description or files needed to accomplish or
verify the task, the task manager should have a facility for attaching files to tasks.
Incorporation of third part file storage systems like Google Drive and Drop Box is
a big plus.
Status: The clear showing of a task’s status is very important and can trigger
action by the project manager or the team as a whole. A task could have one of
the following states:
o Backlogged
o Open task
o Assigned
o Worked on
o Late
o On time
o Completed
o Failed
o Forwarded
Tagging: A good task manager provides tagging to label task for easier search
and grouping.
Search: A good task manger provide search by different attributes like assigned
to, status and tags.
Percentage completed: This provides a tool for the person working on the task to
tell the rest of the team what percentage of task is completed at any given time.
Comments: During task’s life cycle question may arise. The system should be
able to provide the ability for the team members to add comments on task for
effective collaboration.
15. Advance task management system
Complex projects specially those involving multidiscipline functionality need more
advance project management software than the two mentioned above. These projects
need robust applications which can manage all cycles tasks go through from inception
to completion. In addition of features mentioned in the above two paragraphs, advance
task management applications have the following elements:
Dependencies: In complex projects, a task might be dependent of another task to
complete before it can start. Or a task can’t start unless another task has already
started. These requirements are called dependencies and the task which
suppressed a task are called predecessor. There are four types’ dependencies of
which Finish to Start is the most widely used.
o Finish to Start- Task A can’t start before task B is finished
o Finish to Finish- Task A can’t finish until task B is finished
o Start to Start- Task A can’t start unless task B has started
o Start to Finish- Task B can’t finish unless task A has started
Priority: Each task has a priority level from low to high. The project managers set
the priority when the task is assigned.
Complexity: This is for grouping tasks to simple to very complex. This helps the
project team pay extra attention to tasks which are harder to accomplish.
Bug Tracking: Advance task management system has facility for entering bugs
during testing. Tasks could be linked to bugs related to them
Gantt chart: Even though Gantt chart was developed in 1950’s, it is still the best
method for visualizing tasks in one graph. Advance Gantt charts let the user
manipulate task data right from the Gantt.
Burn-down chart: Burn-down chart is another visualization tool for comparing the
project plan against the project’s actual progress. It shows if tasks are on time as
planned or late. It also predicts the estimated project finish date based on
project’s own up to now data.
Advance project management software are used by from simple to multi disciplinary
projects which need advance task management plus tracking tools needed to run
projects productively.Binfire, Wrike and Clarizen are examples of project management
software which have advanced task management tools.
The market is filled by task management software vendors who claim to have what you
need to be productive. Not all teams are the same, try and choose the application that
16. fits your needs. Refer to buyer’s guide for purchasing project management software for
a complete step by step guide on how to select software for project management. This
guide specifies the requirements of task management software as part of a good project
management application.
Task life cycle
The status of tasks can be described by the following states:
Ready
Assigned
Terminated
Expired
Forwarded
Finished
Failed
The following state machine diagram describes different states of a task over its life
cycle.
17. Activities supportedby tasks
As a discipline, task management embraces several key activities. Various conceptual
breakdowns exist, and these, at a high-level, always include creative, functional, project,
performance and service activities.
Creative activities pertain to task creation. In context, these should allow for task
planning, brainstorming, creation, elaboration, clarification, organization, reduction,
targeting and preliminary prioritization.
Functional activities pertain to personnel, sales, quality or other management areas,
for the ultimate purpose of ensuring production of final goods and services for
delivery to customers. In context these should allow for planning, reporting, tracking,
prioritizing, configuring, delegating, and managing of tasks.
Project activities pertain to planning and time and costs reporting. These can
encompass multiple functional activities but are always greater and more purposeful
than the sum of its parts. In context project activities should allow for project task
breakdown, task allocation, inventory across projects, and concurrent access to task
databases.
Service activities pertain to client and internal company services provision, including
customer relationship management and knowledge management. In context these
should allow for file attachment and links to tasks, document management, access
rights management, inventory of client & employee records, orders & calls
management, and annotating tasks.
Performance activities pertain to tracking performance and fulfillment of assigned
tasks. In context these should allow for tracking by time, cost control, stakeholders
and priority; charts, exportable reports, status updates, deadline adjustments, and
activity logging.
Report activities pertain to the presentation of information regarding the other five
activities listed, including graphical display.
18. Best way to manage your task
Once you find out what works for you and strive to implement good habits, you'll be
plowing through your work with renewed energy in no time. For example, making sure
you get plenty of rest and exercise and creating self-imposed deadlines can improve
concentration.
1. Make a list of daily and weekly tasks.
A bullet-form list is quick and easy to read and follow.
Be thorough and include extra tasks that may inevitably arise in your day. It's
best to be realistic.
19. 2. Decide what's most important.
Some tasks may have priority, such as making a meal, doing homework or keeping
an appointment.
20. 3. Divide tasks throughout the week or month.
Give yourself additional time to relax.
Get plenty of sleep to think more clearly and creatively.
Leave time to do work that is not a priority.
Set aside time to take care of anything unexpected.
Some things take a little longer than anticipated.
Leave time for error.
21. 4. Accomplishsmall tasks.
Break down your more time-consuming tasks into smaller increments.
Do your math homework in two half hour sessions, taking a break in between.
Have fun in between chores.
This creates less stress with a more reasonable use of your time.
22. 5 Stay focused.
Try not to start a new project until a previous project has been completed.
Concentrate on one thing at a time and do it well.
Write "Focus on Priority" on post-it notes. Keep them near the phone, computer or on
the refrigerator to remind yourself.
23. 6. Reviewyour progress
Sit back and look over your work.
Have you progressed as far as you should?
Is there a more efficient way to accomplish what you're doing?
Reassign portions of your project to another day.
Delegate to others, if needed.
24. 7. Be flexible
Try to complete your projects, but if unable to do so, complete them up to a certain point
and leave them for another day.
25. 8. Plan a deadline
Stay on track and on schedule. If you are scheduled to do something, do it, unless it is
very inconvenient or impossible to do so.
26. Tips
Make a plan for the day and follow it!
Begin your day by doing the most important task first. Just getting that done will have
accomplished a lot.
Have enough rest before starting your work.
Leaving projects half-finished will make you feel disorganized. Plus you'll feel as if you
haven't accomplished anything.
Before studying, meditate to relax your mind. Concentrate on one thing that needs to be
done.
Social Sites distracts you from what you want to accomplish... So try to turn off the
Internet or simply turn off your laptop. However if you do work on the lap top and need
the Internet just use parental controls or any other external software that will allow you
to block sites temporally.
Log time spent on distractions and breaks. You'll realize more time could be available.
Log time with a chess clock.
Get everything ready before you start. For example: A pen, books etc. Try to get a glass
of water or a fruit to refresh your mind.
Don't leave tasks saying "I can do it later". Do what you're scheduled to do, right now
and right there.
27. Advantages of using a to do list
Focuses your mind on important objectives
You are less likely to forget to do tasks
Writing a list helps order your thoughts
It helps show the bigger picture
You don't need to hold everything in your head.
It saves time
It helps you decide on priorities: the most important and the most urgent
You are less likely to become sidetracked
You get the reward of ticking off your achievements
You feel more in control
You have a record of what you've done
You always have something to work on
28. Working Schedule of a day
8.30 Get up
9.00 Breakfast
9.30 Read newspaper
10.00 Lecture
11.00 Coffee with friends
11.30 Work in library
12.30 Lunch
1.30 Careers Information Room
2.00 Lecture
3.00 Seminar
4.00 Sports Centre
5.00 Dinner
6.00 Listening to music at home
7.00 Work on CV
7.30 Chatting with neighbour
8.30 Union Bar
11.00 Party at Abigails
2.00 Home and bed
