What do you do first and last?

I have had this discussion with different people over the years, how you answer may say something about you. Here is the situation:

Your boss gives you 5 tasks that need to be done by the end of the day. There is enough time to do them all. There is no prioriry expressed or implied as to which should be done first or last nor does on require another to be done first. IOW it is 100% your choice the order they need to be done, exept that you must finish one before starting another.

Now, one task you like doing, three you are neurtal on doing and one you positively hate.

Do you do the one you hate first to "get it over with" or do you do the one you hate last in hopes that your boss will tell you to stop what you are doing and do something else (assume this can happen) or something else will eliminate the need to do it? (again assime this can happen.)

"Your boss gives you 5 tasks that need to be done by the end of the day. There is enough time to do them all."
With this guarantee of completion, you should delay your most hated task, but without the guarantee, you should do it first. Most likely, the most hated task, would in the real world, be the most difficult and should be done first to guarantee it's done faster and correctly when you have the most energy.

I would usually do the longest job first whether I like it or hate it just to see how the schedule was working out.

I would complete the job I liked doing first. I would leave to last the task I hated. As for the others, I would complete those jobs that took the shortest amount of time (quick hits and procrastination me is :-)

Definitely last. I am an optimist, maybe some disaster will happen before I get to the hated task and then I won't have to do it.

I would complete the job I hated doing first, and save the job I liked for last.

Though it is explicitly stated that there is ample time to complete all tasks, I still have to consider fatigue v. the quality of my work. If I do the thing that I hate at the beginning, I am likely to do a better job and pay more attention to it because I am fresh. If I save something I really like for last, regardless of my level of fatigue, I'd still do a good job just by virtue of the fact I like doing it.

Quote: kenarman

I would usually do the longest job first whether I like it or hate it just to see how the schedule was working out.

The field of operations research offers a number of heuristics for job sequencing that can improve performance against a variety of objectives. It is interesting/amusing that the approach that kenarman uses is exactly opposite that of a very common heuristic that optimizes on several important objectives.

The SPT rule -- Shortest Processing Time -- suggests that you begin with the shortest job, then when that is complete you examine all of the available jobs, including any that arrived while you were working on the first job, and choose the shortest of those to do next. Keeping with this SPT selection rule leads to a minimum average number of jobs waiting to be started (in the queue), minimum average number of jobs in the "shop", minimum average waiting time in the queue, and minimum average time in the shop.

Minimizing those objectives can be particularly attractive when a job is associated with in-process inventory that either takes up space or represents idle capital investment. Of course there are many other potential objectives that are not addressed at all by the SPT heuristic, but I thought it was interesting that one of the first approaches described (kenarman's) is exactly the opposite.

Quote: Doc

The SPT rule -- Shortest Processing Time -- suggests that you begin with the shortest job, then when that is complete you examine all of the available jobs, including any that arrived while you were working on the first job, and choose the shortest of those to do next. Keeping with this SPT selection rule leads to a minimum average number of jobs waiting to be started (in the queue), minimum average number of jobs in the "shop", minimum average waiting time in the queue, and minimum average time in the shop.

This is interesting in how it relates to my old job of mortgage processing. In that you have do balance short and long against other factors. You might do the long thing because if you always do shortest first it will never get done. Or the deadline for shortest is such that "it can wait." I always said on job interviews that it was the kind of fuzzy logic we may never get computers to do better than humans, not in this lifetims.

I always do my jobs in order of decreasing importance, followed by decreasing difficulty. It means that if I can't finish them all, for any reason, it's the least important tasks that are left undone, and out of the least important tasks, ones that can be done by less qualified personnel.

Never thought of it in terms of love/hate. Guess I don't care, just want the result? But trying to think back, what I hate probably gets done somewhere in the middle, after interesting tasks and before relaxing ones.

That felt really good, maning up, checking off Bigot, thanks!

Quote: DeMango

That felt really good, maning up, checking off Bigot, thanks!

Well I figured some people might not agree with my point of view and wanted to give them something to check off. lol

As AZDuffman mentions in his post my todo list always used to have way more things on it then I could ever get done in any given day. If I put off the longer jobs, or the jobs I disliked then they would hang at the bottom of the list forever. Sometimes this procrastination would work out and they would become unnecessary but more often they would become harder and create additional problems.

The second reason I would get the longer job over with first is that it always felt productive blowing through a bunch of short/easy jobs at the end of the day hence I would leave work on a high note.

Quote: kenarman

Sometimes this procrastination would work out ....

More than two years ago, I made a post in this forum in which I quoted a brief poem I heard long, long, ago:

"Procrastination is a crime that only leads to sorrow.
I can stop it any time. I think I will ... tomorrow."

ALWAYS saved the one i hate for last. May run into trouble on earlier ones and have legitimate reason to have someone else do the one I hate or priorities may change. Nothing to gain by doing the piece of shit any earlier than I must.