This guy is doing what I have often wanted to do. (link to Yahoo! video)

It is frustrating when I have a million tasks waiting on my to-do list. When there is just so much work to do that it becomes impossible to deal with it, when tasks takes more time than expected or when something goes terribly wrong, it could be easy to overreact in an extreme way.

I find it helpful to write each task on a post-it note, on the post it I write down a brief description of the task and how long it should take. The time I estimate the time by taking multiplying the time it should take in an ideal work environment by 3. This will leave me some time for looking into reference material, phone calls and unexpected problems. If I estimate that a task should take me 2 days (16 hours), I will set a side 6 days (48 hours). Sometimes I will use less time, great then I can start the next task early or do a smaller task in between. I normally try to tasks larger than one day, larger tasks is normally possible to break up into smaller tasks. The smallest tasks I estimate is normally 30 minutes, so I will free up 90 minutes to the task. If something can be done in 10 minutes or less, I normally try to do it right away. Sometimes a series of takes just take to long, when splitting up tasks it is easier to let then know on a early stage that the deadline might be a problem. It is often easier for others to handle bad news on an early stage than to break the news just before the due date. A early warning will make it possible for others to do part of the work, reduce the scope or postpone the deadline without it affecting their business.

[tags]stress[/tags]