Does anyone time their checklists or have checklists that would benefit from a timer? I'm thinking of information like how long does a checklist step take, how long does the entire checklist typically take to complete, or when's the last time I did a checklist. I have two small examples in mind where this has been useful:<p>1. reviewing my finances—and making sure I don't miss any transactions<p>2. GTD weekly reviews—to make sure I make enough time for a review, especially if I'm not as consistent as I'd like to be<p>Very curious if anyone else finds it helpful to time their checklists. Or does it suffice to just do a checklist regardless of how long it takes?
I do this and I'm making an app to do this basically. It's a todo list where each task has time associated with it, then you can play the timer to count down while you do the task: <a href="https://twitter.com/satvikpendem/status/1446697663479562242?s=20" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/satvikpendem/status/1446697663479562242?...</a><p>The website is at <a href="https://getartemis.app" rel="nofollow">https://getartemis.app</a> but it's still under development.
Many things in knowledge work are very hard to time. Even reading a document has huge variance.<p>I've settled on just two time blocks: morning to lunch and lunch to evening.<p>Energy level has a very strong effect too, possibly a 10x effect to time. Sometimes I get a thing done in 30 mins, sometimes it takes the whole day. And sometimes I stress out about it taking the whole day, depleting my energy level and it takes two days.<p>However, it's useful to time routine work, like picking up groceries and meetings. The consistent things anchor the rest of the day.
When I make my todo list for the day, I estimate how long each task will take and write the time I expect to start each one. Since I rarely overestimate, it mostly serves as a way to limit myself to reasonable expectations, but there is the minor benefit of pressuring myself to stay on track for the day.