How many tasks to plan beforehand [closed]

Question

As for my daily routine. Every morning when I come to work, I look at the items of my todo-list inbox (noted from the previous day). For each task I think about on which day I should get started and then group them accordingly. Once that's finished, I get started with my actual schedule for the day.

Now, this pre-planning for each task (which could be concerning user interface to compiler programming) is mostly pretty sketchy. Serious thoughts about design and implementation comes when the task is about to be tackled. This approach works for me and I can't really complain.

But I'm wondering. Since I'm personally most productive during the morning, would it make sense to already go into a deeper level of planning right away for each task? Or is that unproductive and would rather confuse than clarify? I think the latter.

How do you handle your task management for each task / project and how far do you go with planning before even getting started with that item?

Answer 1

I've found writing on a piece of paper in the mornign really useful. I sit down and see what I want to achieve during the day. Then I write it down point by point and next to each sub-task I put much time I think its going to take me.

Drilling down into sub-tasks like that lets me realise much beter what is required and where I mgiht meet difficulties.

I do the same thing on Monday, but instead of today's chedule I write down each day's tasks.

Answer 2

How do you handle your task management for each task / project and how far do you go with planning before even getting started with that item?

Planing your weekly/daily tasks to be implemented or daily work load is important routine. As we do agile development, my approach is to get up to speed with user stories (aka, some requirements and documents) first, understand them, clarify them with BA and then plan my 2 week work-load.

It is very helpful to have a notepad or even a white board to write down your tasks and look at big picture, before doing your daily task load planning. It does help to identify fuzzy blocks of information that you would need to know, in order to get a clear vision on your targeted tasks.