Framework

Questions of the week: How to estimate the time for working on a particular ticket? How to estimate the time for working on a particular ticket? How are you planning your day according to tasks? Do you follow any specific framework while working, e.g. 80-20? How does it affect time management?

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How to estimate the time for working on a particular ticket?

There are many proven methods for estimation. Today let's talk about one of the simplest methods to get your estimation done.?

It's called the Work Breakdown Structure.

Here is an article to get introduced to it. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/software-engineering-work-breakdown-structure/

The tree diagram in the above article shows that the task represents the ticket (drawing parallel from the above question). You must break it into logical sub-tasks and divide each subtask into work packages.?

Each work package is something you are confident to estimate and is recommended to sit anywhere from 2 to 4 hours. If it's bigger than that, break it into two work packages.?

Just in case you need help estimating the work package.

Ask your teammate to estimate OR Ask your seniors to estimate OR Pick the closest similar work in the past and multiply by 3

Add all the work packages together to find the estimation for the subtask. Add all the estimations of subtasks to get an estimate for the task.?

That's how you get an estimated time for your ticket.?

How are you planning your day according to tasks?

It's the other way around. You'll need to find your day's schedule and fit the task accordingly.

Schedule Example #1

Morning

90 mins - Urgent and Important task

90 mins - Urgent and Important task

Afternoon?

30 mins - Emails and Communications

60 mins - Urgent and Non Important task?

90 mins - Non-Urgent and Important task

60 mins - Calls/Busy work??

Schedule Example #2

Morning

90 mins - Non-Urgent and Important task

90 mins - Non-Urgent and Important task

Afternoon?

30 mins - Emails and Communications

30 mins - Calls

60 mins - Urgent and Important task?

60 mins - Urgent and Non-Important task

60 mins - Buffer??

Based on your capacity, capability and energy, you have to allocate the work package in each time block and create a routine for your work day.

Do you follow any specific framework while working, e.g. 80-20? How does it affect time management?

One of the principles that I keep in the back of my mind is Parkinson's Law.?

Parkinson's Law is the old adage that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.

I use a hack so that this law works in my favour. Whenever I get a task, I ask How I can get an outcome close to the expected one, and I can do it 20% of the time?

I rely on it because I know that otherwise, I will waste time without producing an outcome.?

There are other laws and principles. Below listed are 40 of them.

1) Pareto principle - 80% of your results are produced by 20% of your actions.

2) Carlson's Law - A task completed in one single stretch will be completed much faster than doing the same task in multiple attempts

3) Murphy's Law - Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

4) Illich's Law - Beyond a certain threshold, human efficiency decreases, even becoming negative. It is also called as Law of Diminishing Returns

5) Laborit's Law - Humans prefer to carry out simple tasks that give immediate satisfaction to avoid stress or inconvenience

6) Hofstadter's Law - It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

7) Law of biological rhythms - Each person is subject to multiple biological rhythms that must be taken into account when scheduling activities.

8) Law of Inertia - It reminds us that if we're not proactive and don't take action, we don't get anything done – a body at rest will remain at rest. Taking action is the key to better time management and productivity.

9) Hawthorne's Principle - If we are being watched in our work, it influences the results we get

10) Eisenhower's Law - If we have a compelling reason to do something, we're more committed to it

11) Fraisse's Law - everyone needs certain times to do certain tasks

12) Law of the Economic Value of Time - Establishing the value of each hour of work (hourly cost), determines the loss generated by unproductive time

13) Perls' Principle - 70% of what concerns us has already happened or will never come to happen.

14) The Planning Fallacy - The optimism bias only affects predictions about one's own tasks, as when outside observers predict task completion times, they tend to overestimate the time needed, demonstrating a pessimistic bias.

15) Maximize the value of your time - The time-wealthy avoid doing low-value work, not because it is beneath them, but because doing work that is low-value damages their ability to have free time.

16) Invest in time assets - Tools and Technology that save time, like better computers or tools that speed up the programming?

17) Earn compound dividends - Multiplying efforts without actually doing the work.

18) Organize and Prioritize

19) Do One Thing At A Time

20) Avoid Distractions

21) Delegate

22) Keep Yourself Healthy and Stress-free

23) Learn to say "NO"

24) Make Realistic Schedules

25) One Task Multiple Outcomes

26) Break Down Your Projects

27) Use automation software

28) Pomodoro Technique

29) Planning

30) Priority Matrix

31) Time Blocking

32) Weekly Review

33) Allow time for the unexpected

34) Don't over commit

35) Leave time for fun and play

36) Develop routines

37) Decision Bank

38) Stacking Good Habits

39) Discipline

40) Proper Preparation??

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