Experiments

Daily priority generatorNine things on the list.
One of them is today.

Most days are lost between eight and nine in the morning, deciding. The list has nine things on it, they are all plausible, none of them is marked, and by the time an order emerges the best two hours of the day have gone to email.

Free, no sign-up. Worked out in your browser, nothing sent anywhere, and the result imports into EvyOS.

List what could plausibly be today.

Everything is worked out in this page and saved in this browser only. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Share this
✦ How to use it

Three things that make it work.

1
List the candidates

Everything that could plausibly be today. Nine is fine — the point is to choose from them, not to do them.

2
Be honest about the hours

Not the hours in the day. The hours left after meetings, and then take one off for the day going normally.

3
Respect the line

What falls below it is tomorrow's problem. Pretending otherwise is how three things get half done.

This asks for the candidates, an honest estimate of the hours you actually have, and which ones are genuinely fixed. Then it orders them and — the part that matters — draws a line where the time runs out. Everything below that line is not happening today, and knowing that at nine is worth considerably more than discovering it at five.

The order puts the hard, important work first, because the first two hours are the only ones you reliably control.

✦ The limit

An answer is not a record.

This works something out and then forgets it. It cannot tell you whether the number moved, because it has no memory of the last time you ran it and no idea what you did in between. Every calculator on the internet has that limit, and if it has never bothered you then this one is yours for free for good.

EvyOS is the same structure with the work recorded against it. Send the result across and it becomes real goals, tasks or habits with their dates — then the next answer is computed from what actually happened rather than from what you remember typing.

Questions

Daily priority generator, answered.

Because a day never goes to plan. It budgets 75 per cent of nominal on a normal day and 60 on a low one, which is roughly what people actually get. Planning at 100 per cent produces a list you fail every day, and a list you fail every day stops being read.
Fixed commitments first because they are not negotiable, then the demanding work while the day is still yours, then everything short. The first two hours are the only ones you reliably control, and spending them on email is the single most common way a day is lost.
From the verb — email and book are short, write and design are long. It is a rough sort, not a forecast, and it is only used to decide what fits. Your own estimate is better; this one is instant.
A line starting with ! is treated as fixed, so meetings and appointments are placed first and never fall below the line. Everything else competes for what is left.
Leave them for tomorrow, genuinely. The value of the line is that it forces the choice at nine in the morning rather than at five in the afternoon, when the only option left is three things half done.

Keep the answer.
And the record of doing it.

Goals, projects, tasks, habits and skills in one system, with the work logged against what it belonged to.

Start for free