Absolute Priorities
“Absolute priorities” refer to assigning to tasks priorities like “low”, “medium”, and “high” or P0, P1, P2, etc.
Priority buckets
Some systems let you set the priority like P0 or P1 for most important tasks, then P2, P3, and so on.
- P0
- Task 1, Task 2, Task 3, Task 4, Task 5
- P1
- Task 6, Task 7, Task 8
- P2
- Task 9
- …
The result is that we might have buckets with P1, P2, and P3 priorities, but inside the P1 category we’re back to the same problem: which P1 task is the most important?
| P0 | P1 | P2 |
|---|---|---|
| 5 tasks | 3 tasks | 18 tasks |
| too many in P0! | about right | “the rest” |
To work effectively with absolute priorities (P0, P1, etc), you need to regularly review them: what’s the size of the top priority pool? If it’s more than what you work on, you need to prune it by reassigning some tasks to second priority. Then you might realize that your second priority pool is now also too large and you created an entire domino effect. But the worst part is that you keep re-assessing the same tasks.
| P0 | move ➞ | P1 | move ➞ | P2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5➞1 task | 4 tasks | 3➞5 tasks | 2 tasks | 18➞20 tasks |
| about right | about right | keeps growing |
New task comes in which happens to be P1. Now we have:
| P0 | P1 | P2 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 task | 5➞6 tasks | 20 tasks |
| new task – P1 pool – too large now |
Now you need to re-assess the P1 task pool and decide which task is going to be moved to P2.
| P0 | P1 | need to move | P2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 task | 6➞5 tasks | 1 task | 20➞21 tasks |
| need to reasses – all P1 tasks |
Task Compass philosophy is different: instead compare tasks with each other, two at a time. Remember the choices and use them to automatically construct the ranking. This effectively automates the above work.
Human brain is not suited for absolute judgements
This applies to most existing systems, including the Priority setting in Apple Reminders.
The second problem is even bigger, even if you somehow maintained the discipline to keep your top priority bucket lean. Humans are notoriously bad at assigning absolute ratings to complex issues. Assigning an absolute rating requires you to keep some sort of an abstract hierarchy in your mind, and to compare your tasks against it. These ratings are notoriously inconsistent. They also might be uprootted by new context.
My half-joking example is that you might have the “save the world” task which looks like it would always be the top priority, but tomorrow you might get a task which is “save two worlds”! This is a fundamental limitation of an absolute scoring system.
| Today | Tomorrow |
|---|---|
| 1. Save the world | 1. Save two worlds /!\ |
| 2. … | 2. Save the world |
| 3. … | 3. … |