✦
Experiments

Task breakdownOne big task,
cut into things you can finish.

A task you cannot finish in one sitting is a task you will not start, because there is no version of beginning it that ends in having done something. The brain is fairly reasonable about this: opening something with no visible end is genuinely unpleasant, and the avoidance is a sensible response to a badly-shaped task.

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Name the task.

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

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✦ How to use it

Three things that make it work.

1
Estimate badly and move on

Your first number is low. That is expected and corrected for.

2
Use your real sitting length

How long you actually work uninterrupted, not how long you sit down for.

3
Do piece one today

It is deliberately smaller than the others. Its only job is to prove the thing is startable.

Breaking it down works, but only if the pieces are actually sittings. Six sub-tasks that are each three hours long is the same problem with more admin. The size is the whole point.

This takes the task, the shape of the work, and how long a sitting is for you, and cuts it accordingly — with a first piece deliberately smaller than the rest, because the first one only has to prove it is startable.

✦ 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.

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✦ Questions

Task breakdown, answered.

One sitting. That is the whole rule — if you cannot finish it in a single uninterrupted session, it is still too big and needs cutting again. Six sub-tasks that are three hours each is the original problem with more admin.
Because its job is to prove the thing is startable, not to make progress. In practice it usually turns into a full session anyway, which is the point — the resistance is at the beginning, not in the middle.
Because everybody underestimates and the error scales with unfamiliarity. Up to 80 per cent is added for work you have never done and almost nothing for work you do weekly.
The sequence and the sizing are the useful parts — most writing goes structure, middle, opening, cut, proof, and most building goes smallest version, core path, gaps, failure cases. Rewrite the wording; you know the task.
Then it is a project, not a task. Take the first third, give it its own finish line, and use the project planner for the ordering.

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.

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