Tracking tasks

Why is it vital

One can group the reasons why tracking your tasks is vital into two major categories. The first is very practical and immediate. The other is more long term and may be enriching.

1. Improve your grade. If you do a good job tracking the tasks associated with a given class, it is extremely likely you will raise your grade in that class because:
   1. you are less likely to forget to do an assignment, study for a test, etc.
   2. you are much less likely to run out of time to do a good job on that task
   3. you won't be tempted as much to cheat
   4. you will have time to really learn the material as opposed to just completing a task
   5. you will have time to get help if/when you run into problems
2. Improve your personal life. By learning to track tasks well, you can improve aspects of you life beyond just the grade in the class.
   1. You can enjoy free time without feeling guilty about work that still needs to be done because you know you have the time to relax.
   2. You should experience less stress associated with trying to remember everything that needs to be done.
   3. This is a great professional skill to learn now and better prepare you for life beyond college.

Guidelines on how to do it

1. DO NOT rely just on your brain to remember everything. There will be things you forget.
2. What works best for you depends on you. Keep trying different ways until you find one that accomplishes what you need it to do.
3. First step is to determine important things independent of whatever method you decide to use to track your tasks. These include:
   1. a list of tasks
   2. the due date of each task and how firm that date is
   3. the difficulty of each task which will include an approximation of how long each one will take
   4. any additional resources that you might need and the availability of those resources
4. Methods that are low-tech. For some people low tech methods work best. Here are some ideas to try:
   1. The minimum that should be done is to write down each task that needs to be done and to write in a place it is easy to find along with the due date. This could be in your lecture notes for the day.
   2. The next level of commitment would be to combine all of these into one master list and to keep that list in an easy to access place.
   3. Then you can use a calendar and place the tasks on the calendar based on the due date.
   4. You can even have a bulletin board (or something similar) where you keep your items posted and remove them when done. (This might even be post it notes on a mirror as long as they are the ones that stick very well or you use tape). This should be something you look at on a regular basis.
5. Methods that are high tech. There are many different apps available to help you track tasks. If you Google "tracking tasks" you will see a lot of them.
   1. One is Microsoft project. One advantage of using this is it (or something similar) is often used when tracking group software development projects on the job. Learning to use it now will give you a heads up.
   2. Outlook also has a task feature that you can use. You can combine that with scheduled due dates on the calendar.
   3. Whatever application you use, you should look for one that can:
      1. list tasks and subdivide them into smaller tasks
      2. assign due dates for the tasks
      3. indicate the level of completion of the tasks
      4. indicate how much time it should take
      5. Systems can also be set to inform you (via text, email, etc.) when you need to work on a given task.

Requirements for credit

1. On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being horrible and 10 being great), how successful have you been in tracking tasks in the past? Justify your rating and include ideas from above in your justification.
2. What are your strengths in this area? What are your weaknesses in this area?
3. Try 3 different ways (listed above), 1 per week, to track tasks. Compare and contrast how successful each one was for you.