thenoviceoof / temcir

An auto-scheduler

temcir

An auto-scheduling project

This was borne out of a frustration with failing to get interesting things done, and instead have my time be sucked into a swirling vortex of video games and the internet (among other things). As such, temcir had to do a few things:

• Propose variety

  Some people take the approach of a strict stack based approach to TODOs. That might be effective, but I am struck with inspiration too often to stick to that sort of plan. Hence, introducing a variety of near/far, or effective/fun, or long/short, or tasks from different fields is something temcir should be able to do.

• Be flexible

  Trying to plan out tasks at the beginning of the day/ tends to break quickly (not survive contact) because once changes start rolling (ie. stop doing something because I opened reddit, or a task takes longer than expected) I tend to just ignore the rest of the planned out calendar.

• Provide a path to 10k hours

  I want to become proficient in a number of things, but since I tend to do things in a bursty manner, I tend to not make progress on any of those things.

• Keep me sane

  All work and no play makes jack a dull boy: maybe intentionally creating down time, in addition to routing around it, could be effective. Also, I tend to binge on stories and byte incrementing simulators: temcir should break up those dead zones and use them productively as dribbling fun.

• Externalize my desire to get things done

  I once tossed around the idea of trying and getting my friends to keep me on task, but there is no bigger critic than myself, so relying on future selves may work out better.

• Bi-directional quantified self

  temcir will generate info on what I actually do, vs. what I plan to do. Also, temcir could eventually accept, say, biometrics so fun gets allocated when I'm tired.

• Interaction must be easy

  Ex. I don't use pensievr that much because it's a pain to login. For the other sort of interaction (API), it would be nice to be able to pull project ideas from the task list for a public interface, such that I just have an idea list I don't have to constantly curate.

Plan

A high level plan to make this happen:

Minimum Viable Project:

• Make a simple webapp that accepts tasks (heirarchy, tag)

• Run a cron job that texts (twilio) you whenever temcir wants to propose you take up a new task, or to check that you're still doing the task, which leads to a link (bit.ly?)

• The bit.ly link leads to a task selection: have one or more options, always with the option to take time off instead (difference being you're committing to a time frame, which may or may not have an effect), or choose from the 'backlog'. Choosing to run a collection of errands within a tag should also be a thing.

• Have simple recurring tasks that take the place of a task after a certain time, which have the same extension/other interface. (sleeping, for example)

• Proposition algorithm:

  • Randomly choose from the task list, weighed by priority and how often I've been doing the sort of task lately (by tag).

• Schedule regular task review sessions, with the depth of sorting inverse to the session's regularity.