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I hold masters in CS and now I'm mobile apps developer (entry level), I always start to plan things when starting or doing any project both at work and projects I do at home (for passion) - as I can deliver the project on time but sometimes I am running out of time like 10 tasks a day vs my time forecast will take 2 on that day?

As I'm beginner level, I want your suggestions on how important is task management for a person like me and for achieving my goals?

My target for the next 3 years will be a Project Manager or similar role - I believe which these time managing skills will be a needed quality.

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    Can you clarify if you're looking for Time Mangement or Task Esitmation help? It sounds like predicting the time your work will take. Jun 13, 2011 at 17:46
  • One tip from experience: learn to delegate and trust. If you are the PM and you know too much about coding, you may think you can better do it yourself. Don't do that and give your team members just enough hints, and facilitate them in learning. Jul 16, 2013 at 15:15

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Being able to accurately forecast how long software tasks is definitely a skill a leader in an engineering team needs. I'd say it's good to know the accuracy of your estimates - I'm not sure you need to sweat speed of development. Often software tasks take as long as they take... and speeding them up can have some really adverse effects - like poor quality.

Over time, it's good to have a general sense of how long certain kinds of work take, and where the surprises can be in building estimates. No estimate is perfect, so knowing factors that contribute to error is easily as important as being right about estimates.

Since I can't quite tell - if you're concerned that your not getting work done in a timely manner - the best thing to do is check out your work habits and the time to complete of your peers. Are most people on the team taking about the time you do? If you're spending more time in certain areas, ask why? And be alert to any habits that aren't contributing to getting stuff done... we all have some slack in the day, but you want to make sure you are consistently getting ahead.

Ironically, one of my preferred ways to procrastinate is in task management - I like planning and replanning work... and I get so caught up in that, I can fail to get things done! :)

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Looking at your current situation and future goals, I would say that proper task management is a key part of your day to day activities. Effective task management will help you prioritize projects, distribute resources, and allow for collaboration. This can be very helpful when you have multiple projects going on at the same time. One tip that I can offer, looking at your goal of becoming a project manager, is to start using some type of project management software. Companies everywhere rely on them now and it will help you out to have exposure.

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You can only become good at time management and Task Estimation by improving yourself in writing code, the more code you write the more you improve and more fast will you become. Dont try to be an ugly project manager who doesn't know how to code but he wants the code to be done in a single day. And experience will teach you automatically how much time is something going to take. As you have a three years plan, i think it is more than enough.

I hope this helps you.

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  • Thanks for the cheers , yes you r ryt , yes there some people who didnt know the subject inspite expecting results instantly. Jun 13, 2011 at 18:06
  • cheers, i am glad it helped you! :)
    – Shaheer
    Jun 13, 2011 at 18:10
  • "experience will teach you automatically how much time is something going to take" - somehow, this didn't happen to me nor to most of the experienced programmers I work with. Doing a lot of coding somewhat helps to get better at estimation, but that doesn't feel like it's all that is needed
    – gnat
    Jul 16, 2013 at 11:28

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