Hacker News Reader

Comment by assadk | Hacker News Reader

Sounds interesting, could you elaborate on this please?

I'm not the GP you asked, but distilling my own personal organization practices into the alluring "Ten Tiny Tasks" title, here's my take on it:

    - Make a list of the 10 tiniest tasks with the least amount of estimated effort you can find or think of that need to be done
    - Maybe save task 10 for a super quick prioritizing of the other 9 tasks, or don't because they are tiny tasks, after all
    - Complete the 10 tiniest tasks
    - Repeat the process until there are no more tasks (of course, there are always more tasks)

And like, tiny. Open terminal to project directory. Opeb browser window/tab to SDK/API index. Shit so easy that you can't help but do them. Repeat until you get to tasks that aren't quite so trivial, and by then, you'll be going.

IME as you approach the limit you can create an infinite number of tasks. The key for me is to pick tasks which balance expedience and bang for buck value, but if you are experiencing intense writers block then I see no problem with a task like "open editor."

Yea. It's like falling down the recursion with a stack size of 5. Do the task. Plan doing the task. Start planning doing the task. Plan starting planning doing the task...

Recursion isn't necessarily the problem per se - it's the sheer number of tasks. When you're at the level of "open terminal to project directory", it takes less time to do it than to write it down, but more importantly, you'll end up creating a 100 of those tiny tasks, and the overhead of keeping them up to date can easily suck all your motivation (and time) dry.

It's a method of building up and keeping momentum ?

Yes, I have a series of nested systems/methods that are designed to build and maintain momentum. The Ten Tiny Tasks are for overcoming inertia and eliminating the small barriers that keep you from starting. I do the tasks before I have my coffee in the morning.

Everyone else presuming you need a list to keep track of them is missing the point - spontaneous and immediate action with minimal commitment.

I think you and I are on the same page, the point of a limited list of tasks is... to have a limited list of tasks. : )

It really is liberating.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com