I've just started playing with it now so these are just initial thoughts:
1) Command Line History would be really nice: Messing up a command (new-prd $var1 (fn ....) and having to retype from scratch is a pain. Although if you get a nice GUI it won't matter;
2) (Never mind; I can't reproduce it now) (After I did (change-time (days -1)); (data ..) nothing was returned from (entered) _ ;
3) Allowing data to be entered via a source file might be nice, but I suppose a script would work ok too. Perhaps I should write a Perl script to convert CSV into Familiar data?
I schedule my tasks on a week basis (using an app I developed) instead of every day, but the process is similar. It seems to be working quite well for at least six months now. I got better results after I increased my estimates of how long my tasks take. (Occasionally my app will schedule ughhy tasks first thing on a Monday morning. If people are interested, I'll report back whether I manage to successfully avoid postponing them :)
What I still need to work on is returning to planning after an upheaval like sickness or holidays. I'd be interested to hear ...
I think deadlines are a sufficient condition for procrastination but not a necessary one. And even starting a project earlier is no guarantee of avoiding a last minute crunch. (When I was studying I'd start projects on time, get the "hard parts" done, but still end up finishing them off at the last minute. Whether that's a function of anchoring or just plain vanilla Planning Fallacy, I'm not sure).
Without a deadline, can you still procrastinate? Of course, but the consequences of not starting are less immediate, but still potentially severe. I...
Segment time into arbitrarily “eras”
Trivial nitpick: Missing word between arbitrarily and "eras". I couldn't quite work out from context whether it should be 'large', 'small', or 'sized'. Naturally, it doesn't affect the argument, being arbitrary.
Note: Firstorderpredicate's response isn't as condescending as it sounds, it's a Methods of Rationality quote.
Yes. (Spoilers deleted; Awfully sorry)
It's in the same domain. The difference is that, as far as I can tell, Things seems to be about ongoing task management, and you still need to set due dates for your tasks. The purpose of PlanMyWeek is that proposes a date/time for tasks, on a (typically) week basis. It's meant to augment tools like Things, Calendars and Reminders.
The other difference, in Things (like everything else I've looked at) there's no separation of urgency and importance, just priority. The problem there is that, while the urgent and important map to the highest priority, if you constantly rank your tasks in this manner, you risk "starving" the important but not urgent tasks, until they become urgent.
My initial goal was to do five hundred in a fifty-two day period, but unfortunately it's looking like this might have been overly ambitious.
"Awww, it sounds like someone fell prey to the planning fallacy." :)
Wouldn't it be a good idea to at least ask? Professor E-V might not have ideas, but he would have contacts at Oxford where he/Harry could find other ideas. The downside is that, by involving the non magical world, his family and those contacts will become bigger targets. And I suspect Harry would be loathe to expose them with an unknown enemy with largely unknown capabilities.
Talking about marketing, have you done any market research to determine if there's any demand for your game? Or is that step one in your strategy? I'm asking because I'm currently learning how to do marketing myself, and "discovered" I've done things backwards by building a product first.
If there are experienced marketers here, they might consider creating a post at LessWrong. I'm sure they won't be shy :)
Plan My Week iPhone App - schedules your tasks for a week, depending on duration, urgency, and importance.
Chess Machine Learning - Trying to teach a neural network how to play chess. I've written a couple of bog standard tree sea...
Becoming too task oriented as well is a bit of trap. As you tick off lots of unimportant tasks, you pat yourself on the back on how effective you are. You risk adding more and more tasks without considering how they fit in with your goals. (This might be what unconsciously goes in the mind of students and writers when they spring clean their houses instead of writing or studying.) Having said that, having a plan that you then act on (and not ignore) is better than not accomplishing anything at all.
I'm not sure how easy a "Plan B" is. If you c...
ETA: Also, upvoted. I like reading things like this -- it helps me get a feel for systems that I personally haven't set up without having to go to the trouble of actually doing so.
Well in that case this won't count as spam :)
I've developed an iPhone app called PlanMyWeek where you describe your tasks, tap a button and then the app schedules the tasks for you.
I was going to prepare a post that when using the app, how quickly it becomes apparent I've fallen for the Planning Fallacy, but this seemed like a good opportunity as any.
Well, we're still waiting on that proof of the Riemann Hypothesis.
Seriously however, how about introducing him to the Collatz Conjecture? Something to mull over when the vanilla work is finished. And given his interests, he'll no doubt think of multiple ways of attacking the problem. I saw chess, computers and videogames listed as interests, so he perhaps he could try writing a chess engine from scratch. Design the algorithms in class and code them at home.
These suggestions might be a little advanced for eight years old, but I expect the boredom problem will get worse over time.
While he doesn't have a proof of the Riemann Hypothesis, after reading your comment he immediately told me what the Collatz Conjecture was.